Dr Bryony Payne joined King’s College London in 2021 as an early career, postdoctoral research associate in the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience.

As a cognitive psychologist, their research examines how people mentally represent what is ‘self’, what is ‘other’ and, critically, how these representations are influenced by the interactions between the society, culture, and language that people are exposed to.

Currently, working with Dr Caroline Catmur (King’s College London) and Professor Geoff Bird (University of Oxford), their research examines people's capacity to understand and mentally represent the minds of others - particularly out-group members - and what can be done to restore that capacity when it breaks down.

They also supervise final year BSc Psychology/Neuroscience research projects at King's, and prior to this, taught at University College London on topics including:

• Development of social cognition
• Neuroanatomy
• Neurolinguistics
• Research methods (i.e. experimental design and advanced statistics)
• Designing & running online behavioural studies

Their doctoral research, completed in 2021 at University College London, investigated how people represent the self, and focused particularly on the importance of one's own voice to who we are as individuals. Specifically, they examined the roles of one's sense of ownership, sense of agency, and of self-bias in the processing of one’s own voice (Supervisor: Professor Carolyn McGettigan).

Research interests

• Self Representation
• Representing others’ minds
• Group membership
• Mental State inference

Expertise and public engagement

• Dr Payne’s research has previously been featured in The Conversation and been reported on news outlets such as Mirage News.