Catherine Preston is a cognitive neuroscientist, studying body perception and self-awareness. Catherine and I first met in Stockholm in 2014 when I was doing an internship in Henrik Ehrsson's lab. Catherine was my day-to-day supervisor, and our project investigated full-body illusions viewed in a mirror. Catherine has since moved to York, where she works as a Lecturer (Assistant Professor).

In this conversation, we talk about Catherine's recent research on bodily illusions, including applications to eating disorders and pregnancy. We also talk more broadly about her experiences of starting her own lab and work as a new faculty member.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith. New long-form conversations every other Friday. You can find the podcast on all major podcasting platforms (e.g., Apple/Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, etc.) and on YouTube.

Timestamps
0:00:05 How Catherine got into studying body perception
0:03:55 Rubber hands, monkey hands, and invisible hands
0:16:12 Catherine's postdoc with Henrik Ehrsson
0:20:33 Eating disorders, body satisfaction, and bodily illusions
0:41:09 Pregnancy and bodily illusions
1:10:13 Starting a lab and teaching (at York University)
1:22:57 Mentorship and learning as a faculty member
1:35:12 Who Catherine would like to work with (BSc, MSc & PhD students, postdocs)

Links
Podcast links

Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcast

Catherine's links

York profile: www.york.ac.uk/psychology/staff/academicstaff/cp1039/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=vwu2AvgAAAAJ
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cejpreston

Ben's links

Website: www.bjks.page/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJ

General info
- Rubber hand illusion
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DphlhmtGRqI
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multisensory_integration#Rubber_hand_illusion
- Full-body illusion
Video (about the body swap illusion): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rawY2VzN4-c
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_transfer_illusion

References
Byrne, A., & Preston, C. (2019). Mr Fantastic Meets The Invisible Man: An Illusion of Invisible Finger Stretching. Perception
Kirk, E., & Preston, C. (2019). Development and validation of the Body Understanding Measure for Pregnancy Scale (BUMPS) and its role in antenatal attachment. Psychological Assessment
Preston, C., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2016). Illusory obesity triggers body dissatisfaction responses in the insula and anterior cingulate cortex.
Preston, C., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2018). Implicit and explicit changes in body satisfaction evoked by body size illusions: Implications for eating disorder vulnerability in women. PloS One
Preston, C., Kuper-Smith, B. J., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2015). Owning the body in the mirror: The effect of visual perspective and mirror view on the full-body illusion. Scientific Reports

[This is an automated transcript that contains many errors]
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: [00:00:00] I mean, so you did rubber hand delusions and that kind stuff not on Right. Um, but, or like, so how did you get into that? Because it's, it seems to me like it's a somewhat smaller area.

Catherine Preston: Yeah. So I guess, um, I came to the end of my undergraduate degree and I, like, I, I, during my degree, I always wanted to do, I was thinking I'd go into kind of clinical as lots of psychology students do.

And then I remember in the final year of my course I did, um, a module which is on, um, neuropsych, neuropsychology. And I was just like, oh, I just wanna keep learning about it. How do I do this? What kind of job? So I went to see, um, uh, one of my lecturers and I said. Yeah, I, well, I dunno what to do, but I want to keep learning about this.

What are my next steps? Like I could do a master's. [00:01:00] Um, and, uh, and they suggested, well, why don't you apply for a PhD? And I know you could get on. So I looked, um, looked up different at the time I was interested in kind of stroke and that kind of thing. So, and then I found, um, well actually it was, uh, Steve Jackson rather than Roger Newport, who was my second supervisor at Nottingham.

Roger Newport was my first supervisor in the end. And that, their research seemed interesting. Um, and so I, um, applied for a PhD and I got on, um, and then. I guess we were, Roger was interested in, they were, they were looking more at mo motor control, so he was interested in motor control. That's what he did for his PhD and was doing on, and then he was interested in, uh, when I was starting a project to do with awareness of action.

So awareness of your body and like that whole kind of self, um, consciousness and stuff really interested me. So that's kind of where we started. And so [00:02:00] awareness of action, and then we kind of, at the, at the same sort of time, um, there were people like Patrick Haggard, uh, as well as Steve Jackson, who was, um, the professor in, in that.

That lab, um, we had got funding from, uh, EPS, the Experimental Psychology Society to run a series of, um, sort of small meetings on, with a theme of body representation. And so I, from, right from the beginning, my PhD, I went along to these, they were really small at the time. They were like,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: so what year was this?

Because I mean, the rubber hand illusion is 1998. Right. So

Catherine Preston: it's, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. It can't have been that much off. Or I mean, somewhat.

Catherine Preston: 2004 I started my PhD, so, um, it, you know, not that much after, so it was sort developing field basically. It wasn't, now it's quite popular, although,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: exactly, that's what I mean. Like

Catherine Preston: it's, yeah.

But at the time it wasn't, and these meetings, these body representation meetings had like, you know, 15 to 30 people in them, like quite small. And I, I [00:03:00] do remember, um, uh, Henrik Sen, um, as a postdoc at one of these meetings. So, you know, um, uh, I didn't speak to him then or anything, but, you know, eventually I went on to work with him.

But, um, see there were really tiny little meetings and then they just grew and grew throughout the course of my PhD. So I think I, I, I, it's just timing, I guess. So, um. I just joined this lab, uh, just as this, uh, that was interested in this area just as it was kind of blossoming. And that's how I learned about the rubber hand delusion and stuff.

I have to admit that when I first learned about the rubber hand delusion before I ever experienced it myself, I was a bit skeptical of this. Like, ugh, illusion making you feel like your hands, your own. But then after I experienced the illusion, then I was convinced because I have a really strong illusion.

I was like, oh my gosh, it does actually really work. It does actually really feel like it's my hand. So, um, yeah, that's my And could you briefly explain what the rubber hand illusion is? Oh, yes, of course. Um, so it [00:04:00] is an illusion where you, um, you get people to feel like a fake hand is their own. And you do this by, you use a fake hand, uh, or a rubber hand, hence the name rubber hand illusion.

And you place it on the, the sort of the table. In front of a participant. Um, so it sort of looks like it's coming from their own body. And then you normally use something like, a bit like, um, like a hairdresser's cape that kind of hides the fact that, you know, that it's a, a, you know, has a, a, the hand finishes at the wrist sort of thing.

So it hides the, the wrist of the fake hand and also your forearm, and then you, the participant's forearm is put somewhere else, either sort of next to it and, and hidden with a screen or perhaps underneath it. Often you can use that. Um, and so, so under the table or underneath a platform on which the rubber hand is on.

So basically you can't see, you can't see your own hand. You can only see this fake rubber hand as if it's coming out of your body. [00:05:00] And then what happens is the experimenter normally uses brushes to, um, like brush or in some way touch the, the, your real hand and the fake hand at exactly the same time and exactly the same place.

And then because what you see, um. A hand being brushed matches what you feel, your hand being brushed, your brain sort of interprets that as the fake hand is your hand. So it kind of recalibrates the felt position of your hand, which we call prop percept, um, in line without the rubber hand. So it feels like your hand has moved to the position of the, the, the fake hand.

And it feels like the rubber hand is your hand, but where if you did the, the, the stroking at different times, so it wasn't exactly the same time and exactly the same place, so it's asynchronous, uh, then you don't get the illusion to the same extent. Is that clear?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think so. I mean, it's always hard, you know, same for me.

Like I dunno it as well as you, but I've done it a few times and

Catherine Preston: yeah,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think that's clear. Uh, but actually one question is [00:06:00] the, so I've only done it or had it done on me when the hand was next to my hand. I've never done the underneath or something like that. Mm-hmm. Is there, do they work differently?

Well, or what's the, I like, why would you do one or the other?

Catherine Preston: So I. Think, well, often it's, uh, I don't know, a, a case of logistics, you know, you might have like in the scanner or something. If you're in the brain scanner, it's much easier. You don't have the, the lateral space to have the hand next to it, so you put the hand underneath.

I mean, and I, I'm not sure if there's been a study, I can't think off the top of my head, which directly compares the two, but in my experience, the one where it's actually underneath, it's much stronger. But the original design was to the side. But if you, if you imagine, if you're thinking about. The felt position of the hand.

It's when you've got it, um, one above the other, it's kind of, they're overlaid even though there is obviously this, this height difference. So I think that's why it's because it seems to be more, and [00:07:00] also the, the, um, you know, the how your fall, the, the, the posture of the, the shoulder and stuff is, it is more in line with that position at hand.

So my ex, I, I can't think of a paper that's directly looked at this, but my experience is that one is stronger, so it also just takes up less space. So, um, some of the studies I've been doing over recent years are, uh, I've been doing sort of in, in public engagement events like science festivals and stuff with kids, and it's just easier to have a little platform.

It's just logistically easier, I think, to use the, the, the one above the other method. But the traditional one that Botnick and Coen use, the, the first ones were done in that way. So that's, that's probably why. So.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So you said you had a really strong illusion. Yeah, and I think maybe one reason why I am, I mean, I find the research really interesting, but maybe one reason why I'm not that much into it is because I get a very weak illusion after lots of effort.

Okay. Uh, so is the, if I remember correctly, when I was at Kaska, I think, [00:08:00] I think I asked this question and if I remember correctly, there wasn't really a good explanation for why it works for some people, not for others. Is that correct or?

Catherine Preston: Yeah, so we don't, we don't really know exactly what we do know.

There is a massive variation in, like, most people get an illusion to some degree. Some people get no illusion and, and again, it's like, then they just think I'm a crazy lady stroking their hands. Right. Um, but it's fine. I've, I've literally given like thousands of these illusions, so, um, I, I'm, I'm, I'm happy with all different kinds of responses.

Um, but I think it depends on the. So it might be the way, there's several theories about why the illusions work and how they work. And so it might be the way that your brain, uh, kind of weights different information. So perhaps for some reason you weight this kind of the felt position for limb, what we call proprioception, stronger relative.

I mean, we're all visually dominant, but you might relatively speaking to other people, uh, kind of weight that [00:09:00] information is a bit stronger. Uh, also I think there's, with recent theories of this kind of weighting of different information is you might experience the illusion if we keep giving you enough information to suggest the hand is your hands.

So, um. Um, where from Nottingham, when I was in Nottingham, we didn't use the rubber hand illusion in the traditional way that I've described. Instead, we had something called the Mirage System, which created similar illusions, but using sort of, um, uh, video, real-time video feedback of your actual hand. So it was a much more kind of immersive and realistic, and that we found it was, had much more, um, higher rates of people experiencing strong illusions because it was actually your hand.

But then we could, we did really cool things like stretching fingers and giving and moving your hand into different places, and these were, and making hands disappear. Or feel like they disappear. So, um, maybe you would have an a, a stronger illusion in [00:10:00] that context. But for me it doesn't really matter. It can be like, um, uh, like I've done, and this is, uh, from a non-published study, but I've done, uh, illusions using a monkey hand, and I, I get the illusion with a monkey hand.

I dunno what it says about me, but Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Isn't it, I mean, didn't if I'm right correctly. So I think it isn't it that basically, like for example, like skin color, something makes no difference usually. Uh, I think like if it's, it has to look like it has have fingers basically, or something like that.

Right? Like a block of wood doesn't do it.

Catherine Preston: Yeah, that's

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: true. But then it has to like have, I don't know, like Yeah. Five fingers or something like that.

Catherine Preston: Yeah. So, well, there's individual differences across this. Um, so you can get, so there's studies to show that you can get illusions. Um, it can get a significant effect of the illusion, uh, when the skin color is not your own skin color.

But to say it doesn't make any difference, I think is not accurate. Oh, I see. So, um, so we've talked [00:11:00]so far, when I've described the rubber hand illusion, I've talked about the synchrony of touch being really important, but there's obviously another aspect and that is your high level knowledge of, of what your body looks like.

And so that's, or, um, I think, uh, it's been termed like your body's structural description or something like that, and so that these kind of high level constraints have an impact on the strength of the illusion. So whereas you can still get illusions, you can still get a significant effect with a different color skin color hand, but.

It's, if you look at the data, it tends to be not quite as strong when it doesn't match your own body. Uh, um, I've done, there's been some really interesting, um, illusions which have tried to explore, and actually I'm writing a paper at the moment. We're using the monkey hand illusion, trying to explore the, the role of these, uh, top down, um, constraints.

These kind of, um, uh, what you know, or what your body should look like. Um, limitations on the illusion. So, um, and I've looked at it in [00:12:00] children. Um, this is, it's an unpublished study yet, but, uh, and I in the process of writing up, but we found that, that this kind of develops during adulthood, but also in adults with the monkey illusion that it depend, it, it's kind of related to their fantasy proneness.

So how much they're willing to sort of, um, suspend disbelief in general. So, uh, if that makes sense. So this, this is kind of these high level constraints, but you can give invisible hand delusions so that you, you may have experienced that in, in Henrik's lab where they just. There was no fake hand. They just stroked empty space and you feel like you've got an invisible hand.

Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think Avid might have tried that. I dunno, I think, I think we took like two minutes to get the normal rubber hand to work.

Catherine Preston: Oh yeah. Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think then we basically said like, yeah, invisible one's gonna be a bit hard now.

Catherine Preston: Yeah. Well, whereas I had spent ages kind of, um, in, in heated discussions in our lab meetings about like, what, what does it mean?

How [00:13:00] can you have this invisible hand illusion? How does it work? It doesn't really make sense. What are you embodying? And then, uh, then they were like, okay, you have a go. And I was like, within a couple of seconds, like, oh, really? Works. It really works.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So as an invisible hand works, it means like you just don't have the rubber hand, right?

You just pretend

Catherine Preston: you feel like your hand is, is sort of Yeah. You sort of stroke an empty space and it feels like you are. Um. You, you, you own an invisible hand, so your hand is there, but you can't see it. Basically. It feels like your hand's gone invisible. It's kind of a really weird experience. So, and I've done, I've done, I published a study what last year where we did a version of that where I was able to do invisible finger stretching.

So we would, that our tactile feedback instead of like kind of the brushing the brush strokes is we, we stroked, um, along the finger and then gradually your sort of invisible finger got longer and longer, if that makes sense. Oh,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you mean like the, the, the, the, the, the [00:14:00] stroke you saw kind of,

Catherine Preston: yes. It's got it stretch longer and longer.

Whilst we're keeping kind of the same. Uh, the same length on your finger, and people felt like they were getting these long, invisible fingers. Uh, the strength of the internet isn't as strong, obviously, as if, if you had real visual feedback, but we were able to elicit that kind of, uh, that feeling of, of long, invisible fingers, which is exciting.

So. And interesting.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: It's such a bizarre research area. Like even within like psychology or doing experiments or something, I give people, make a decision between like two things or something. Then you have these things where you give, like, that's, that's the one thing that I found so cool and, and when I was in Stockholm is that this was pretty much the only time that consistently participants said it was an interesting experiment to take part in.

I mean, here you occasionally have someone who say, oh, that was really cool, and you go like, was it like, really? That was interesting. I mean, fair enough. But, um, it's, yeah, with a, I mean we did the full body illusion, but there it was fairly [00:15:00] common that people would say, like, that was actually really interesting.

Catherine Preston: Yeah, it's nice because, um. What's really nice in science to try and get people to engage in it. And that's why this field is really good for that because people can take part, like, that's why I do a lot, I do a lot of these public engagement events and so you get people to take part and then they get interest in why it works and how it works.

Uh, although a lot of people sort of say, oh yeah, but what's the point? And then you're like, aha. And then you can give them some, the proper science behind it and they're like, oh yeah. So it's not only fun, but it's also important. So, um, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Best of both worlds.

Catherine Preston: Exactly. I think so. But yeah, sometimes I think that I'm a bit like, you know, I've had like fake, you know, my lab has got open the cupboard in my lab and there's a mannequin in there and stuff and uh, PE so people do think I'm a bit weird sometimes.

It's like, oh yeah, she's the lady with all the hands. So, and, uh, but you know.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. It's especially weird when, I guess te, I think someone said that in Henrik's lab that they were going through [00:16:00] Stockholm with like a rubber hand in their bag or something. And you do sometimes get slightly weird looks where there's like a finger coming out of your bag or something.

Catherine Preston: Yeah. What have you got that? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, so you said like you kind of accidentally, almost got into the field.

Catherine Preston: Mm-hmm.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, how did you end up then in Henrik's lab in Stockholm? I guess you said you met him earlier, but didn't talk to him.

Catherine Preston: Well, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Not avoiding him, but just didn't talk to

Catherine Preston: him.

No. Yeah. Well, I, I mean, I, I met him when he was a postdoc, but then I, I met him later as well, but I didn't really speak to him very much. I, I'm, I'm quite shy, especially when I was a PhD student, I was very shy about the. Um, so I wasn't very good at that. But yeah, so during the course of my PhD and then I stayed on in the same lab and did, uh, two short postdocs.

They were about a year. And then, um, I was looking for a job and um, [00:17:00] uh, someone sent me an advert for a job in Henrik's lab. And obviously Henrik at that point was, um, uh, blossomed into a, a very well respected researcher in our field, like, um, with some excellent publications and some really nice big grants.

Um, so I was like, oh, well I'd like to try and work with him. So I, I applied and um, I got invited for interview and uh, and when I turned up, he recognized me even though we hadn't and was like, oh, yeah, so we do know each other. We've seen each other at conferences. Um, and that's, it went from there really.

I mean, um. Henrik has such a great reputation. So obviously when the opportunity came to work with him, I was very keen, uh, to, to take that and I wanted to learn FMRI and I hadn't been able to do that during my PhD, so it was a good opportunity as a postdoc to learn FMRI.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Was that a problem that you had, had you done like some sort of neuro imaging before or was it really um.

I'm always curious, like when, I mean [00:18:00] I'm still in the middle of my PhD, but I'm always curious like how easy it is to get a postdoc if you don't have the tools that you want to use later on. I mean, to some extent you have to learn your stuff, but you know.

Catherine Preston: Yeah, so actually it probably is really difficult.

Um, that's, it's good to learn these skills in your PhD if you can. 'cause it is really difficult to get a postdoc, which is on neuro imaging. Um, without that neuro imaging experience. Uh, the benefit with, um, Henrik's lab is that he doesn't just do neuro imaging, so he does behavioral. So he has met plenty of, um, people who work for him who don't really do, uh, neuroimaging, but just focus on that behavior work.

Um, so it's this, it's not just a neuroscientist or a psychologist, but bringing those two together, which I think is really important to have the skills in both because you get psychologists that maybe don't do so good neuroscience and neuroscience that don't necessarily do so good. That sounds bad.

Psychology, but you know what I mean. It's kind of nice to Yeah. To have the expertise in both and try to join that. Um, I don't [00:19:00] necessarily class myself as, as that, I don't think I'm an expert in your imaging, but at least I kind of know what I'm doing a bit now, so, uh, that helps. That's good. Um, so yeah, it was a rare opportunity as a postdoc to be able to learn to learn that.

And also in, in one of the top labs in my field, it was a, it was a, uh, I was really lucky to get that position, so it was good. And Stockholm, lovely, lovely city. Enjoyed living there for four years.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. It's also, I, I mean, I really loved it, but I was there for one summer when they had the nicest weather ever.

Yeah.

Catherine Preston: So

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think I have a very biased view. Um,

Catherine Preston: ah, but the winters are also nice with the snow and the, I dunno, I liked, I liked the, the way it changed over the years, so I like that. But the summers were always after a long cold winter. The summers were always welcome, even if it wasn't perfect weather. So,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, I mean that's what really surprised me when I came and like, people seemed so happy to see the sun.

Yeah. Like, I mean, it's not like I grew up [00:20:00] in, you know, I still grew up in Northern Europe, so it's, I'm used to having like cold winters and everything, but that still surprised me how much people just stood outside and just like, oh yeah, sunshine.

Catherine Preston: Yeah. Yeah. I think others in the lab that came from like Southern Europe or, um, you know, ca well, you know, somewhere in the States that's really sunny, struggled a lot more with the, uh, with the climate in Stockholm.

But I, I, I, I was fine. I was fine with it. Obviously it's colder and and darker than the uk but I didn't notice that much difference, to be honest. So that was fine.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Actually, the thing I probably want to talk most about, I guess, is your work on, um, I guess full, using full body illusions to study eating disorders and, what do you call it, body satisfaction?

Yeah. Or, uh, these kind of things. Um, is, is that also, is that what you're kind of focusing on right now or,

Catherine Preston: um, I've developed a bit from there, so we still, we still, I still [00:21:00] dabble a bit. I guess the problem is it's, um, what I would like to do is work more with eating disorder patients, but I found there's, you know.

It's, uh, difficult to, um, to engage with those kind of populations. I think particularly in the UK when I've talked to different researchers in different places. So, and I guess when you think about it, so some of my study is what we did. It's the full body illusion. It's basically like the rubber hand illusion, but for the full body.

So you wear a virtual reality headset and you look down as if looking at your own body, but instead of seeing yourself, uh, you see, um, images from, um, some, a camera of another person's body or a mannequin body from this first person perspective. So if in the place of your own body you see this different body, and then again this, um, this touching at the same, at the same time helps strengthen that illusion.

Um, and what I've done before is give people ownership over fatter [00:22:00] bodies and slimmer bodies. And I suppose, you know, no one's gonna let me into a, an eating disorder clinic and. Give these eating sort of patients ownership over obese bodies. 'cause that's ethically could be quite challenging, but, um, and why exactly?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Well, they,

Catherine Preston: I

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: mean,

Catherine Preston: it's a transient experience, but, um, so it doesn't last very long, but it could be that it might cause anxiety if they look down and see their body as obese. Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: right. Like thinking they should get even slimmer or

Catherine Preston: Yeah, exactly. Or they might find it emotionally difficult. Um, so we don't really know because no one's let me do it yet.

So, um, uh, but yeah, what, what I found when I've looked in, uh, the healthy population is that. When you give, uh, women ownership over an obese body, um, actually with men, as we found out as well, uh, then people felt worse about themselves 'cause they kind of own that body and they felt fatter and they, and they felt worse about themselves, like, uh, [00:23:00] lower, uh, body satisfaction.

And this was also related to when we can measure sort of individual differences on the sort of, um, eating disorder psychopathology one might call it, or just sort of, um, how their negative feelings towards themself and, and eating behaviors anyway that sort of related to. So the worst, the lower body satisfaction they have in the first place meant the stronger effect they had when they owned this obese body, the worse that the, the more negative they felt after owning that obese body.

Did that make sense? So, um, yeah, so that's what we found that we can change, change their emotional experience by changing how they perceive. Uh, perceive their body, their body shape and size basically. And when we did that, we did that in the, um, brain scanner. And, uh, we found that the areas of the brain that are linked to this, um, this perceptual experience of the body, so you [00:24:00] know, the experience of size and shape of your own body, um, were actually directly linked or communicating with these more emotional regions of the, of the body.

So it seems to be, there's, it's like a direct relationship in the brain between the perception and the emotion, which I think is quite interesting. Um, especially when there are theories around eating disorders, which suggests that they have an inaccurate perception of their body. And so this kind of inaccurate perception might be in some way, partly driving their emotional response.

But we don't really know that yet. It's just a theory.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. And that's just. Is the main problem with, with testing clinical populations then the, the ethical part? Or, or is it also like organization or,

Catherine Preston: yeah, well, there's lots of logistical issues. Um, yeah, so there's ethics. There's also sort of, it's nice to get clinicians, um, engaged, but the, a lot of clinicians are so overworked [00:25:00] that they don't really have time to engage and research even if they want to.

So, um, that's, you know, there, there's lots of different issues, which meant that this area of research has been a bit slower than I would like. But, um, yeah. So. But we, we've done quite, we've still looked, um, at it within healthy populations and we can see, and then that tells us a little bit about risk factors for, for, you know, developing eating disorders perhaps, rather than looking at clinical populations.

So I was able to do some rubber hand delusions stuff with, uh, with, um, some eating disorder patients, but that's as far as I've, I've got. And then that clinic was taken over by a different organization and I went on maternity leave, so, um, I need to try and I've not long come back, so I need to try and, uh, uh, reengage with the clinicians there to see where we go from there, so.

Right.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, that does always seem with [00:26:00] clinical stuff that it just involves, as we say. Yeah, just a lot of organizational time talking to people, getting them to trust you or wanting to work with you. Absolutely.

Catherine Preston: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, I'm also like, um, doing a bit of work now we are looking at, uh, perception of the body during pregnancy.

Uh, 'cause obviously you, you, I mean I hadn't thought about it before and then I got pregnant and I was like, oh yeah, why didn't I look at pregnancy before? And so again, I'm looking at the same sort of aspects. So this link between, um, bodily changes and um, emotional aspects. 'cause again, a lot of people, you know, uh, there's in the perinatal or period, so pregnancy and after birth, there's sort of like high instance of anxiety and depression in this group of people.

Um, so it's interesting to look at how the body is related to that. So, um, in terms of, you have lots of external changes, but also internal changes, what we'd call interception, um, and hormonal changes. So I'm kind of [00:27:00] interested in that and I'm. Currently working with a, a midwife, and I'm hoping that that will, that will lead to something.

But again, it's, there's a, a lot of the work behind that is, you know, trying to, um, engage with clinicians and make good links and get people enthusiastic about your work. And, and often they, uh, in academia, we are quite interested in underlying mechanisms and the basic science behind things. But obviously in clinical practice then they're mostly interested in the applied elements.

So you really wanna bring those things together. But it's quite, um, it's quite a learning curve to see how to try and link the two to keep everyone happy because I, if I talk too much about the mechanisms, they're like over my head, what's the importance of that? Um, and you have to try and keep those engaged.

And then also, um, embrace the applied stuff. But that's not necessarily always as controlled as you want. As you would do in the lab. So yeah, it's, it's quite a learning curve for me, but it's, it's interesting and I [00:28:00]think it's really important. 'cause often, you know, with all the best intentions of researchers, the, the clinic and the, and the lab don't, don't often talk so well, so trying to do that, it's, it's a long process, but it's, it's kind of the reasons that got me into research in the first place.

So I'm, I'm, I'm trying, I'm very, I'm trying to, I'm trying to continue that and to make those clinical links.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So what is then the, uh, what, what can these body illusions, I mean, you mentioned earlier, for example, in these public, uh, not discourses, but when people ask you like, okay, this is fun, but what's the point of this?

So like, for example, for the clinical context, what exactly, I mean, maybe not now, but um, in principle, what can these kind of bodily illusions. Add, uh, to help I guess clinicians do their work better?

Catherine Preston: Yeah, so, well, I think some people have done work, uh, with, uh, full body illusions, um, [00:29:00] in eating disorder patients, and they have suggested that patients have, um, how they've probably phrased it, so less stable body representation.

So they tend to get, uh, the illusions far stronger. And, um, maybe it's less important of this synchrony of touch, which is obviously, as I've said before, it's really important for most people, um, for the strength of the illusion that perhaps it's a little less important for 'em, so more readily adapt to these bodily changes.

Um, and perhaps this instability might be part of the, the problem or, but also there is a potential that, um. If we could, if we could find, using some of the different illusions, if we could find a way to maybe, um, make, sort of update, uh, the perceptual experience of the body of someone with eating disorders.

Um, and there are, I have, you know, that there are, I have hypotheses of how this could be done [00:30:00]then, um, then perhaps we can make the, the, the more accurate than realize their true shape and, and therefore make some progress into helping with therapy. I mean, that would be the, the ideal to be able to use some sort of body illusions in therapy to, in order to kind of update body representation.

So then more active. So what you mean by

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: update exactly.

Catherine Preston: Yeah. Yeah. I, I was thinking that as I was saying that, I was thinking what does that mean? Uh, okay, so, well, if you think of the traditional view, um, of someone with anorexia for example, and there's lots of pictures you might see in the media where they look in a mirror, but instead of seeing their true emaciated self, they'll, they see a, a fat or a normal sized body.

Now exactly. Whether this is how they experience it, it probably, probably some do, but maybe not all do. But, but this might be a feature or something similar to this, be a feature of some presentations, of, of eating disorders. Um, and [00:31:00] exactly. We need to learn a little bit about why it's not accurate, why their representation of the self isn't accurate.

But it could be if you are able to, um. Use these illusions to change their experience of themselves, even, you know, by, by giving them a different, uh, size body and making them realize that actually, you know, when they look back at themselves, perhaps afterwards or, or during the illusion that, hang on, you know, that myself, uh, my own body is, is too skinny rather than this fat body that I've been looking at.

I mean, one, um, nice. Some, some examples in the re have been just anecdotal actually, where people will see a reflection of a body in a, a window or a mirror, and they'll be like, oh God, she's skinny until they realize it's themselves and then they don't recognize that, if that makes sense. So perhaps if we can change the way that they view the body, so like either [00:32:00] they see their own body as if it's someone else and that kind of can make that connection somehow update that body representation or use these solutions to just change their perceptual experience.

That might just kind of make a, a shift in the brain to, so they're more accurately recognize the true size of their own body. I'm not saying that all people with eating disorders have this inaccurate representation of body size, but, but maybe for ones that do have this, that might help to, um, in some way through therapy.

That's,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, in a way that is kind of, that might be a goal in itself, right? Finding out who do have that feature and who don't.

Catherine Preston: Absolutely. I, I mean, that's, that's the thing we need, we need to learn about. That's why the mechanisms are so important, right? So we need to, to learn about ex what's, you know, who has this or, um, you know, how many people kind of have this, is it a true perceptual deficit?

And we need to, we need to do [00:33:00] a lot of this basic science before we can get to the clinical, uh, more applied stuff. And so I guess that's why it's kind of difficult going to a lot of clinicians when you're not immediately going to like, oh, let's try this. It'll help us a therapy. But I guess that's, that's an imp again, an importance of doing a lot of the work, looking at the variation within the healthy community, because you have plenty of, unfortunately, you have plenty of people who aren't diagnosed with eating, eating disorders who are very dissatisfied with their bodies or have, um, relatively high or, you know, um, sort of risk factors or similar sort of, not quite clinical, but, but high, uh, negative feelings towards their body and or, or bad relationships with food.

But perhaps we can use this population first to, to show some patterns and then move on to the clinic, which is kind of what I've been trying to do for the last number of years. Um, but yeah. So [00:34:00] did that make any sense?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, yeah. One thing that's interesting to me is I was just, it seemed to me. I mean, you said earlier for example, that the part of the reason why illusions might or may not work with certain people is because of maybe some top-down processes that you go like, well, I know it's not my hand or whatever.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and then you also mentioned that, um, I mean anecdotally, but that people with eating disorders might look at their own body, not know it's their own.

Catherine Preston: Mm-hmm.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And then realize it. So that seems to be, again, like a kind of top down thing, right? When as soon as they know like, oh, that is my body, then the, um, perception of that body changes, completely changes.

I mean, that, those stuff, I mean that, that's the kind of more generic, I mean, it's not specific to body illusion, so is that like maybe an approach that would be best suited to study first in, you know, stuff that doesn't, uh, induce this kind of body illusion. So some sort of, um, you know, [00:35:00] testing how much they weigh prior evidence or whatever, something like that.

Catherine Preston: Yeah. Well, yes, I, I mean, I'm, I think there's been, I think there are some studies with people with eating disorders in this kind of area. Uh, but it's, uh, I can't remember, I dunno if they've ever looked exactly that question. But, um, they, there, there's definitely a number of different sort of, uh, traits in terms of how they, they take on information, which is different, which is supposedly different in those with eating disorders compared with non, um, people without eating disorders.

But, um, yeah, but I guess the thing is we don't, it's, it's not exactly clear, um, how significant a role 'cause uh, although I've said obviously it is important these top down. Constraints on body representations, but um, we can still make people have invisible stretched fingers, which obviously they know is not [00:36:00] real.

So we can still have this effect. Um, and all the sort of evidence on body representations in those with eating disorders might suggest that they might even get the strong more strongly. And actually this, again, this, um, this, this, this paper that I'm currently writing where we did this monkey hand illusion.

So we also did, um, uh, a different, we got, um, adults and children to have the illusion over small or large hands. Um, because, um, previous studies have shown that. Don't really, um, have the same illusion, same strength, illusion when the hand is really small again, for this kind of top down constraint sort of, um, hypothesis.

So we, we did this study, um, where we got, we took two measures. So we asked people, you know, does it feel like your hand? And we found that same, that same difference between children and adults, that, uh, children would own, um, either hand like big hands or small hands, whereas adults had a much [00:37:00]lesser ownership over the smaller hand compared to the larger hand.

But when we did a different measure, so we just asked them, we showed them a series of different size holes and we were asking them to make judgements whether they could fit their hand through. We found that both children and adults showed an effect of the illusion on, on that sort of, it's not quite an implicit task, but a, a more, a less direct task.

So where they might be saying, oh no, that's not, you know, that's not my hand. But when they went to use that hand or make judgments. Indirectly assessing the high size of the hand, it seemed that they had embodied it to some degree. So,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: oh, sorry. So the, the adults had not, the children hadn't?

Catherine Preston: No. Or everyone showed that effect?

Everyone showed, yeah, everyone showed the effect. So whereas, um, the adults then were not showing the illusion over the small hand, but when you ask them to reach through something after they owned a small hand, they were saying they could fit the hand through smaller sizes of mm-hmm. Of whole. Does that make [00:38:00] sense?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yep. Yeah.

Catherine Preston: So it suggests that even though perhaps in a subjective, uh, I'm not getting the illusion kind of way that, that, that, that has an effect, but maybe when you take other measures, um, it, it does have an effect. And I guess we need to look at these in the different populations to see whether if those with eating disorders do the same kind of thing.

Uh, so even if, I don't know, uh, you know, there's, we don't really know enough about. The role of that to really be definitively, say, if they weigh different types of information differently, they won't get the illusion. There is a hypothesis and maybe someone should study that. But, um, there, there are so many, I don't have time to do every, uh, to answer every question that I, that I, that I find interesting.

I, I, I probably spreading myself a bit thin across different topics as it is. So, um, but yeah, definitely it could be interesting question,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: by the way. What, what kind of monkey hand did you use?

Catherine Preston: It was

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: because, sorry, I'm asking because I, I [00:39:00] once met someone and her hands. Looked exactly like the hands of a gorilla, like the, the, in terms of like length of, because I think, if I remember correctly, gorillas have really short thumbs or something, and really large palms.

Catherine Preston: Ah-huh.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And so then I looked up like different, I mean, not monkeys, but apes hands and for example, I think ang hands have hands that are very similar to humans.

Catherine Preston: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But other stone. So just curious, like how different is it from a human hand?

Catherine Preston: Yeah. Well, uh, it was, I, I have to, it wasn't maybe anatomically correct for the type of monkey it was, I think it was meant to be a chimp's hand, but it was basically that.

Mm-hmm. Like a, it was a bit like a, a, a glove to fit, uh, a human hand, but it was really hairy and had, uh, like the knuckles and features of a, of a, it was of a monkey hand. It was kind of a bit of, of a fun thing for the kids to do as well. But, um, but we, but we did find interesting effects as the children would.[00:40:00]

Report equivalent illusions, whereas the adults had a less illusion for the monkey hand. So, um, but yeah, yeah, it was, it was, um, oh yeah. I, I have to admit it wasn't completely anatomically correct, but, um

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. It was more Okay, so yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Catherine Preston: Yeah,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I guess that's why you called it monkey hand and not the bonobo hand.

Catherine Preston: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it, uh, yeah, I haven't, I, no monkeys were harmed in these experiments. I didn't cut off any monkeys hands. That's very good. So, um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: we should also say rubber hand illusions are also not cut off of people.

Catherine Preston: No. Yeah, exactly.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No humans are harmed of that either.

Catherine Preston: No,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: no. As far as I know, I dunno where you got them from.

Catherine Preston: I definitely,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: that's what you always told me.

Catherine Preston: Definitely, definitely not, not not, um, severed human hands, although it probably would work,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: although

Catherine Preston: it would probably work with a severed human hands. As, as well. But I'm not gonna do that

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: hypothetically.

Catherine Preston: I think ethics might be a bit of an issue with that, you know?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Maybe even more than with the eating disorder people.

Catherine Preston: Yeah, exactly. What,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: how

Catherine Preston: are you gonna get this? Uh, okay,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: well [00:41:00] we have ways

Catherine Preston: anyway. Yeah. Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Okay. So, uh, back to the, or I'm curious about the pregnancy stuff. So, is. So, I dunno exactly what you did, but I could imagine, for example, there showing a body that's growing larger on the belly would, for example, not be associated with negative feelings because it's seen as a positive sign of the child growing, right?

Catherine Preston: Uh, well, yeah. Again, it's or not, so we, we didn't, um, I, I haven't done that. I, I haven't done that study yet, but obvious, obviously that is, um, oh, one of the, one of the things when I was doing the obese, um, with, uh, um, a healthy population when I gave them this, uh, uh, this obese, uh, body and, and I saw the effect on body satisfaction.

So one of my participants there. Said to me, oh, actually, I felt better when I had the fatter body because it reminded me when I was pregnant and I was so happy, um, at that time. And at the time I hadn't had kids. I'm like, eh, [00:42:00] whatever. How can you? Happy, happy about that. Uh, and then, um, uh, but, uh, so I think that it is a bit more complex.

It's a bit more complicated than that, but, um, so, uh, our, our one published study on this is actually just developing a scale to try and to try and look at this. So it's a, it was a bit of a tangent from my normal experimental side, but, um, we wanted to use a good scale in order to test, you know, in order to, to, to look at this changes in how people felt about their body.

Um, so we had to start there. Um, and I think what's interesting is that, um, obviously for some people in pregnancy, as you're right, just the, the belly growing is a good thing because it's, it's associated with a healthy baby. Um, but obviously you're still this. When you're getting bigger, it's still a deviation from the social ideal of what, what a woman should, is an attractive woman looks like.

And for, so doesn't

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: that change with, you know, like, you go like, well, [00:43:00] you're pregnant so therefore, you know, yeah. Well, or not,

Catherine Preston: yes and no. Not for everyone. Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: okay.

Catherine Preston: So I think there's, there's strong cultural aspects in this, but also a big individual differences. And also even, even that it is, even though it, if it does change during pregnancy.

So, um, yeah, so there's definitely some. So there's a lot of qualitative studies in this area. Um, and, uh, some of them have talked about this change where, yeah, I'm allowed to eat what I want. I can just be, I can have a big belly because I'm pregnant. And so that suspends everything during pregnancy, whereas other people still really struggle.

They're getting bigger and they really struggle with that during pregnancy. So I think there is, um, individual differences in how you, um, adapt to this, the changes changing body during pregnancy, but also even if you're happy to have this baby bump, it's like that isn't the only physical change that you have during pregnancy, right?

So that not everyone just puts weight on just [00:44:00] where their bump is, that they'll get. There's lots of, uh, to be honest, there's not one part of your body that probably doesn't get affected by pregnancy, which a lot of people aren't expecting. Um, and so they struggle with that. And so there's still an ideal pregnant body.

It might ha it just probably has this perfect little baby bump and slim everywhere else, right? So, um, it's, it's not, it's not just the case of, oh, you can look how you like, 'cause you're pregnant and you're growing this person, which it should be because your body is doing this, putting, you know this, it's an amazing thing and it takes a lot of energy, uh, to grow a child.

It's crazy. Um, uh, but, but it isn't like that unfortunately. So, um, it's interesting for us to kind of explore that. And I guess what's important is, um, to maybe identify perhaps women who struggle a bit more with, with the physical changes in pregnancy for whatever reason. Whether it's because they're having.

More [00:45:00] hard time with physical changes or because of their, their beliefs beforehand, which mean that they, they don't accept them very well, or as easily these people might be more at risk at developing postnatal depression or, um, uh, prenatal depression or anxiety, that kind of thing. And also you have to think that although there's this sort of when you are pregnant, then there might be some forgiveness as like you get in your big belly as soon as you give birth.

What happens then? And I think that's where a lot of people have obviously this, that the focus shifts away from, oh, this, the pregnant woman needs to be looked after 'cause she's got the baby. She's allowed to kind of eat what she wants and look how she wants. You give birth, sunny, the focus is all on the baby, not on the mother.

Incorrectly. So, um, and then you're not, where's your excuse for having a big belly anymore? Obviously you still have an excuse, but

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, yeah.

Catherine Preston: You know, not that you need an excuse, but you know what I mean. It's, it's like, um, internally I think there's a lot of problems and just physically, like if you've had [00:46:00] a long traumatic birth as well, you're, you're not just overweight, but all the physical elements, it can take you months or years.

Some people have, uh, bodily changes which never go away. So, um, it's a huge physical undertaking just to create a human being. And, um, so there's a lot to explore there. So yes, I think that there would be interesting to look at, um, the, the overall changes as you've suggested to see whether they actually get more positive feeling owning bigger bellies.

But more importantly, I think it's to look at the individual differences for those. Um, to maybe identify people who are maybe at more risk at developing, um, uh, mental health issues. And perhaps we can pick that up from, um, their experience of their body or their physical changes during pregnancy, or at least part of that.

I'm not saying it's that the only, the only cause, but perhaps it can contribute in some way. And so that's what I'm interested in rather than the overall effect, but more nuanced, uh, changes, [00:47:00] which might be, um, tell us something about help us, uh, with maternal and infant health and wellbeing, that kind of thing.

Does that make sense?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean,

Catherine Preston: so I put, I, I feel like I've just sort of, you know, um, preached at you about, uh, uh, how difficult it is for a woman to give birth or, and be pregnant and stuff. But, you know, you have obviously, how would you know, uh, you have no idea, but it's, um. Yeah,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: that's true.

Catherine Preston: And I had no idea before, before it happened to me.

And that's why like, oh, I'm really interested in this field now. So I think, I think it's quite interesting.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Did that then kind of shift your also academic interest a bit in that sense? Yeah. Or was it more kind of realizing that there was just something like, oh, it can be applied to that in fits well,

Catherine Preston: yes.

Uh, a a bit of both. So, um, yeah, I think right now I'm really interested [00:48:00] in, um, yeah, uh, yeah, the pregnancy side of things. And I think it has academically shifted my interests a a bit. It's still within the same broad umbrella. Um, and, um, I have PhD students who are just a PhD student and also other students who want to work with the eating disorder stuff.

And, and perhaps if you're a, you know, um, a 21-year-old, you're not so interested in pregnancy research. I mean, some are, but not everyone is. So I, I'm definitely still doing that. So it's not completely shifted my academic interest, but it certainly has made a bit of a change. Um, and, um, and just applying things that, um, uh, I, that we know about or we've learned about just generally, um, body perception and stuff like that in, in non-pregnant women, it's made me think about how that might change, um, during pregnancy.

So, uh, one, um, quite hot topic in body representation [00:49:00] research at the moment is, um, interception. So interception is sort of, uh, body signals that come from inside the body. So things like hunger, um, first, um, potentially pain, uh, and stuff like that that come from, does proprioception count as, yeah, so this is, it is quite difficult.

The, the, the, the boundaries of what. Uh, counts as, uh, interception and what doesn't. But so some people might argue prop percept does. Another thing is effective touch. So if you, um, obviously this is an ex, when you touch someone that's very external, but if you touch 'em at the right velocity, then that activates something called C fives, um, under the skin and it feels pleasant.

So this kind of, this nice feeling touch what the poster if you stroke fast, which doesn't have the same internal effects. And so this is, um, we've done a bit of work with effective touch and some people would definitely say it's interception and other people say not [00:50:00] so sure. So there is a bit of a debate of exactly what cancers interception or not.

But um, yeah, so in terms of pregnancy, obviously there's huge changes. So, or at least there's big changes, certainly in the way that you might attend to these internal signals. So. You know, for, for me, for example, um, I've always been someone who just, maybe I don't have very good interceptive awareness, but I, I, I don't always notice when I'm hungry, so I can be like at work and it'd be like, oh, it's four o'clock and I haven't had lunch.

How did that happen? When I became pregnant, that did not happen. I was eating lunch at 11 and I was starving. You know, I got to points where I was just, I remember being like, I have to eat now, otherwise I'm gonna faint. And I, I also know other people who have been like that. And you know, my husband is like that and obviously he's never had kids, uh, himself.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I was about to say.

Catherine Preston: Yeah. Um, and so it, I think that's quite interesting that that's, [00:51:00] or at least my attention to these signals might have changed. So it's probably, I'm just, I got more hungry because my body is more busy using stuff up, but also because I'm aware that I'm growing a person inside me.

I was like, oh, I better act on that rather than, no, it's just me. It's fine. You know? So it might change the way that you attend to it, but also there are significant changes in, you know, suddenly you have these little baby kicks from within you. And so they're sort of an internal bodily signal, which is weird.

'cause it's not actually you that's making that signal. It's a little baby kicking. Oh, that's, so, that's like a cell, is that interception? Well, yeah, it's, I don't dunno. It's like a, but then I guess it's the, the, the baby is making the kicks, but you're feeling it from within your own body. Right? You're feeling it because they're, they're kicking into your bladder or your, you know.

Elbowing your in the, in the ribs or something like that. So you, uh, exactly. It's a bit more complicated than that. Yeah. But there are definitely signals coming from within the body, which are brand new. And so I think that all of this, it's so, uh, um, annoyingly, it's, um, [00:52:00] with, uh, the lack of face-to-face testing at the moment, it's quite difficult to pursue this.

Um, at the, at the minute I have been dabbling with online experiments, but they're harder, obviously, they're, they're not so easy to control and, and stuff like that. But, um, yeah, just trying to, trying to explore a little bit about, um, how these interceptive changes might relate again to sort of, um.

Maternal, um, mental health because in, in terms of eating disorders, like poor interceptive awareness has been linked with eating disorders. And that kind of makes sense intuitively that perhaps they, uh, someone with anorexia either doesn't recognize that they're hungry or ignores that they're hungry, so they have to dampen down these signals in some way.

So it kind of makes sense that this, um, there is some difference in interception, uh, with these, and again, some, maybe someone with binge eating disorder misinterpreting signals thinking that they're hungry when they're not, that kind of thing. So, so it does make sense. [00:53:00] Um, so I'm kind of interested, I guess the, the benefit of working with pregnant samples is they're a little bit easier to work with than, than your, um, eating disorder samples, but you can tackle some of the same questions and maybe something about what we learn in pregnancy can, we can then, we can then apply to other clinical groups.

So, um. Yeah, that's kind of what I'm interested in. So they're kind of the same questions, similar questions, but, but in different populations and you know. Yeah. But it's kind of part of the same, same sort of thing.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. It does sound as if you could do, as you said, many of the studies or address many of the topics that you want to do, but without, for example, the ethical, I would imagine at least fewer ethical constraints because they're not a clinical group.

Catherine Preston: Yeah, exactly. They're healthy women. They just happen to be pregnant. Exactly. Yeah. So, um, so it does make it a bit easier. And then maybe if we can do some [00:54:00] of the work in pregnancy and we learn about some of the, I mean, they're a really good group because they, you know, there are significant changes that probably occur during this time.

And if we learn a bit about that, then maybe we can. Build more of the, um, the, the knowledge that we need in order to kind of convince clinicians working with eating disorders to, uh, to, to let me at their patients. So, you know, that sounded wrong, but you know what I mean?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, I think I know what you mean.

Catherine Preston: Yeah. Yeah. So, but you learn, but they're interesting in their own way as well, as I said. 'cause the, the women, uh, in pregnancy and just after pregnancy are, are, are much more prone than the general population for, for having depression and anxiety. So, um, obviously there's a lot more going on. But, but in, because I'm a, a body researcher then I, I'm interested in that, in the, the body's contribution to, to these, if it has a contribution to these things, which, because pregnancy [00:55:00] is such a physical, and birth is so physical, you would think that it would have some sort of potential contribution to, to what's going.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And it's kind of just, so have you, I mean, it sounds to me that this is still early days. Mm-hmm. But have you looked at like how this changes over time? Like from, you know, let's say you have people who, I mean if it's with like a fertility clinic or something, you would have people who aren't pregnant yet but want to be, and then you could kind of look at how that, is that something you want to do or,

Catherine Preston: yeah, absolutely.

So it would be, I mean that obviously if you work with people with the fertility clinic, it might be people who are trying to conceive, might be paying different attention to their body compared to people who are before they're even trying to conceive and not, then that's gonna be. It's difficult to get.

It's, it's a long, it's, that's a, a much more long project to try and, uh, get people before they've even thought about having kids and follow them the whole way. But yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the first next [00:56:00]step would be to, um, try to follow people from pregnancy to post postnatally. So we've done a bit of work in pregnancy, so as I said, we've got one published study and we've got other, um, other ones, uh, lots of other data from pregnant women.

Um, and we've got some data from postnatal women, but they're different women. But the next step would be to try and follow people, um, through pregnancy and, and to postnatally and to see what happens. But then, yes, of course it would be interesting to, to find people not pregnant and then follow them all the way through.

So, um, yeah, that's, that's a goal, but it's a bit, I need, uh, I need some funding to be able to do that, so, um. Uh, the, some of the data that I've got at the moment, hopefully Will, will provide good pilot data for grant applications. So that's what I'm hoping,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: but it, it does sound to me like you have like a, uh, it seems to me like it's kind of a niche in the sense that it's potentially very interesting [00:57:00] research that hasn't been done yet.

Catherine Preston: Yeah, exactly.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: There's

Catherine Preston: a lot of the work

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you do, you know what I mean? Like, or not more like an area that

Catherine Preston: hasn't been looked

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: into yet. Almost

Catherine Preston: abso Well, yeah, so there's been, there's some work on body satisfaction in pregnancy and um, um, that kind of thing, but certainly. Putting together perception and this emotional, and also even the, the body satisfaction in pregnancy is, is a very relatively niche field in itself.

And, um, you know, there's, there's a lot of qualitative studies and not much, um, strong experimental studies. Mm-hmm. So that's where we're, we're hoping to sort of fill that gap. So, um, and, and then, you know, it's quite an interesting, bringing together different areas and I is quite interesting. And as I said, I've, I've recently been, um, uh, a founder, a midwife, a trained midwife who's really keen on [00:58:00] research.

And so I'm hoping that we can, we can build, um, a good relationship, uh, to try and pursue this area more, because I think it's got, I think it's really interesting and as you said, it's under, it's an under researched area. I mean, especially when you think of. How many women get pregnant, you know, and the, and also there's a really quite high proportion, relatively, of women who then develop mental health issues over this period.

And the knock on effects of that aren't just damaging necessarily to the mother, but also to the babies development. So it's actually a really important, uh, field relative to its general lack of research in that area compared to other areas. So I think it's, uh, it's important. I'm probably becoming more feminist, uh, in my, in my time, uh, as well.

Just in terms of, uh, interested in, you know, in, in terms of like, I guess women in science. And, and when you look at many of these, uh, journals, which. Are tailored [00:59:00] towards things like midwifery or women's health. The impact factors are, are really low compared to some of others. And you just think, ah, anyway, I won't preach to you about that.

Yeah, yeah. But, um, but this is how,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: that, that was actually one thought I did have at some point when I went, I think when you mentioned funding.

Catherine Preston: Mm-hmm.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So like, ah, this might be the kind of area where it's harder to get funding, um, because of these kind of factors.

Catherine Preston: Yeah. Well I think one of the, one of the problems that I've, so one of my main aims in research is to try and link the clinic with the lab, right.

And, but that's probably one of the hard, one of the things which makes it more hard for funding, if that makes sense. So I think I mentioned it before that there's probably some slightly different emphasis depending off your clinical applied research compared to more basic science research. And because my research.

Often seems to kind of fall in between the two. So, [01:00:00] you know, some research funders will be like, oh, that's too applied for us. Whereas the applied, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Applied funders be like, oh, that's too basic science for us. Um, so I need to, it's a bit of, um, it's a bit of a learning curve for me to, to work out how to pitch and, you know, so perhaps if I'm applying to a more applied funder, I have to kind of lean towards that in the main aims, but then obviously try to do all the basic science part as part of the studies, but perhaps less focus on them in the application, talking about bureaucracy, you know, uh, of that element now.

So, but it's, it's, it is, yeah, I think that is a challenge, um, in that way. Uh, but hopefully, you know, hopefully it won't be too hard. I'm hoping. So now I'm back from maternity leave. I'm, uh, up to grant writing. Um, I'm starting to, to be working on grants again, so I'm hoping that, um. It already that bad. I mean, obviously applying for funding is hard [01:01:00] anyway, but um, you know, it's a bit of a lottery anyway, but

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: then again, it's also novel, so

Catherine Preston: Yeah, I'm hoping so.

I'm hoping that will be the nice selling factor. So, but, um, we will see. Time will tell.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Actually, one thing I wanted to ask was, you said online studies. Uh, I'm just curious, how do you do, I'm assuming you're not doing body illusions online. No. Uh, so what kind of stuff can you do online for your line of research?

Catherine Preston: Uh, yeah. Well there's, I've just, just the one pilot and I've just got pilot data for it, so I'm not sure when you're gonna broadcast this. They want everyone copying me, but, uh, no, um, no, I mean there, there's a, there's a task, uh, what's the acronym stand for? Um. Yeah, so that basically there's a task called um, mist, which is, um, I can't remember what it's, what it's actually some mindful inter, it's about interceptive awareness, right.

And it's a bit of a weird task and [01:02:00] probably one that I wouldn't have jumped to use first if it wasn't one that I thought, hang on, this might be something that I can, I can, uh, apply to an online study. So it's, um, where you basically have, um. People, uh, you ask people to attend to different parts of their body for a couple of minutes, and then during that time you're sort of, you know, mindfulness.

So I dunno if you ever done yoga or mindfulness. And they're like, ah, now put your attention to your back. And then there's like, and then you think about your back and you're meant to be sort of in the zone. And then what happens in this time is there's some like little three beeps or whatever. And when you hear the beep, if you are, if your mind has wandered, if you've sort like started thinking about a cup of tea or something like that, then you have to respond.

Uh, whereas if you are still concentrating, then you don't press a button, right? And then, but I've also had to adapt it a little bit for a [01:03:00] slightly different measure too, um, just to find out how. Easy, they find it to maintain their attention towards different parts of the body. And so this is meant to be some sort of interception, sort of how, sort of maybe more how avoidance or something, or lack of avoidance of, of attending to different parts of the body.

Right. So this is the task that I've, that I've tried, uh, I've adapted to online. And actually I've got some really interesting, it seems to have worked. So, um, uh, I haven't got a massive sample 'cause it's only a pilot. It's only a pilot study to see if it's even feasible. Um, and, but it is, uh, so I got people to also take, um, a questionnaire, which is meant to tap into interception.

And what I found is that their response, their performance on the task does correlate with some of the scales associated with interception. So it does seem to be tapping into at least some aspects of interception or what we think of as interception. Um, but in a less direct way in terms of asking. [01:04:00] How much do you attend to whatever.

I mean, it sort of does, I suppose. But anyway, it's a different measure to do it and um, and so I've, I've been, I've. Yeah, so I, I've tried, I've tried this and I've got, um, some pilot data from around 20 pregnant women and some postnatal women and some neither women. Um, and, um, I'm just, you know, there's some potentially interesting findings 'cause I'm looking at things like, I don't know, weight gain during pregnancy and, and we are finding some, some potentially quite interesting relationships between the performance on the task, which need further exploration.

'cause obviously it's not, obviously my plan would be to get 'em in the lab. It's not so controlled, but, um, they cer they potentially point to something that could be interesting so that, that's trying to make something in this current situation to work. And it's been more successful than I, I thought, as I say, I need quite a small sample, but it's been more, it's been [01:05:00] more, um, I've definitely got some interesting pilot data, which it deserves further exploration in there.

So I. Uh, yeah, I find that interesting. But, um, yeah, it's quite tricky. Um, it's quite tricky at the moment.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That also sounds like the kind of thing that you could do with people with eating disorder, right?

Catherine Preston: Absolutely. Yeah. So the, the, and probably a little bit more accepted because it's kind of, it's sounds a bit like a mindfulness thing and there's plenty of studies which have done mindfulness in, in, um, in eating disorders.

Um, so, um, yeah, it's definitely something that we could probably do with that kind of population, but it's only my first time of toying with it, um, uh, toying with the, the, the paradigm and, um, yeah. So we might plan, um. Some more studies. I think maybe a student project potentially could be next year. Just looking, looking at just further seeing whether this works and it would probably have to be online as [01:06:00] well, so we're not really sure, given the current situation, where we're gonna be and when we're gonna be allowed to do face-to-face test testing.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, so yeah, can be. So you're not allowed to do any

Catherine Preston: face-to-face testing? No, not at the moment. I'm not even at the moment. I can't even go into the department. So, um, yeah, and there's, um, we don't even have a timeline for when, when we'll be doing face-to-face testing. Um, so we don't know when that's gonna happen.

And also, even when we do, I guess the problem is if I want to be testing patients, they might be protected even still. Right. Especially if you think about eating disorder patients, which might be in a vulnerable category 'cause they might be physically vulnerable anyway. So testing these people might be quite, quite a long way in the future.

Directly, um, and even pregnant women. So a lot of the research might be that it might not be harmful, but the, the advice is be, be cautious. So, um, yeah, so, uh, unfortunately, uh, [01:07:00] that's, that's a, a big barrier at the moment. So just trying to think of ways to try and get around that. And, um. I don't want to just do loads of questionnaire type studies.

That's not really, that's not really what, I don't mind dabbling in it, but in a, as a means to an end. But that's not really my research focus. I want to do experiments, so, um, I'm trying, I'm trying to explore. Avenues, but yeah. So you are allowed in, you're allowed in the, the office I can see,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. Yes. This is not my favorite house.

Uh, my ceilings aren't quite that high in my flat. Um, yeah, we've, and we'll see for how much longer seems like, so in Germany it was. Beginning of April was the peak.

Catherine Preston: Mm-hmm.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And since then it's gone really far down. I think they've been, so here, I think the first thing was, I mean, so we are at a hospital which changes things slightly.

Oh yeah. Okay. Um, but, um, I think we've been scanning since FMRI [01:08:00] since May or so. Okay. I mean, not me, but like people in the institute. Um, so yeah, it is like we're doing behavioral testing and everything. It's, it's more or less back to normal here.

Catherine Preston: Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But then again, then I was like creeping up again. So we'll see where we'll be in, in a month or two.

Catherine Preston: Yeah. So, uh,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it's,

Catherine Preston: yeah, so we, we were beginning, we were opening up, but then the numbers creeping up. So, um, things are, are put on freeze and I mean, there's still plans for the university to open and, uh, for the, the autumn term, but whether. I, I just, as I say, there's no plans for face-to-face testing yet, so I don't know when anything will be happening.

But all teaching next year will be online. Well, most all lectures will be online. I might have, there might be some student presentations, um, but you like a group of 30 in like a, a massive lecture hall rather than, um, so, so ways to get around it that way. But yeah. [01:09:00] But yeah, so all student projects are all planned to be online.

Um, at the moment, uh, my main research is trying to, well, writing up papers which have piled up since I've been on maternity leave. Um, you know, so obviously I've got a lot of catching up to do anyway. Um, and online testing when we can and, uh, systematic reviews, that kind of thing.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So yeah, everyone's gonna be doing their reviews.

Catherine Preston: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Actually reading literature of other people. Yeah,

Catherine Preston: that's good.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, sorry, I have this fly that's, here's really. Okay. Um. Yeah, I mean, in some sense that it seems to me almost like if you, it seems to me most academics do have a lot of projects that they kind of should be writing up right now, or should have done a while ago.

So I, I feel like people might just kind of get rid of their back backlog.

Catherine Preston: Yeah, totally. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: At least temporarily until then in a few years, a new one builds up, but

Catherine Preston: yeah. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So I'm hoping that, yeah, it's making use of the time to write up these papers and to, [01:10:00] um, and, and hopefully to write some grants, so, you know,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: but yeah.

Yeah, of course.

Catherine Preston: That's the plan. So hopefully it won't.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So how does, or in general, I guess maybe like, since, I guess since we like saw each other the last time, I think, uh, you've, well you moved to York, right? Yeah. Um, we started in Stockholm the last time. Um, but how, how has it been? As a lecturer.

Catherine Preston: Well,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: how's that been?

Catherine Preston: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Starting your own lab and that kind of stuff.

Catherine Preston: Um, yeah, it's been, it's been, it's been good. So I like the autonomy. It's nice to have that, um, to be able to direct. I mean, Henwick was incredibly, uh, good at letting you kind of direct your own research anyway, but it was quite nice to have to, for it to be me and not just Henrik's postdoc, you know?

So, um, so that, that, that's quite [01:11:00] nice. Um, obviously a lot of work trying to build your lab up. And also just the, because I, I'm a lot busier with other stuff. I have to teach, I have to do administration for the departments, so, um, I'm not doing as much of the face-to-face testing, so having to delegate that has been quite.

You know, it's, it's learning how to do that, which is, uh, which is good. I mean, it's helpful. I've had, um, two fantastic PhD students. Uh, one of them finished in April and he was amazing and, uh, definitely could trust him to do. To do everything perfectly in the lab, well, perfectly really well in the lab. And like he's, he is, uh, he was amazing and did a really good job.

Um, my current PhD student, she's also, um, fantastic. So I've been really lucky with these brilliant PhD students, um, which has helped. [01:12:00] Um, so that's all been really good. And I really enjoy mentoring. I mean, I still need mentoring myself, you know, but I, I, I enjoy mentoring other people because I think I've learned quite a lot about how to play the game of academia.

Um, many of the lessons I've learned too late for myself, but I'm hoping to help, uh, bring on, uh, new researchers, the next generation of researchers. So I'm hoping I really enjoy that aspect. And there's nothing, it's really nice when you meet enthusiastic students who are really intelligent and really, you know, I find that really inspiring and I really, um.

I really enjoy that element of things. So I really like that. Um, obviously I'm driven by research, so, you know, the other tasks feel like they might get in the way sometimes, but they're part of my job. It's nice to have a permanent position, I suppose, and so you can actually, you know, um, 'cause when you move institutions, it's, there's [01:13:00] always this, this backlog of settling in somewhere and, and building up your research again.

So it's kind of nice to, you know, I've had that obviously then I decided to have two kids, which sort of does the same, you know, gives you a little gaps in your CV anyway. But, um, but it's nice to be able to, to know that I'm not, not be searching for the next job, which is kind of, which is just kind of good.

Um, so, and I'm lucky where I am because I think that I, my teaching load isn't, isn't very high. Um, which is good. Um, and you know, I, I teach a module on. On my own subject area, which, which is, which is good. It's just that I find, I, I actually find, I get a bit stressed about that because I, I want people to enjoy it because it's my, it's my baby, right?

And I have to tell them about my, my research. It's like, please, please love the research. Please love this area. This is great. Right? Yeah, this is great. It's great. You've gotta fun again. You're having

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: fun.

Catherine Preston: Yeah. [01:14:00] And, and it's generally gone very well, but, um, but yeah, I do get that anxiety of like, you know, this is important to me, so I'm, I'm hoping that you enjoy it.

Um, but yeah. So, um, yeah, it's been good. It's been, yeah, it's, it's been good. Some obvi obviously you kind of miss, um. Postdoc days where, and PhD where you don't have to do these extra tasks. But then it's nice to be part of a community at York where, um, it's supportive. So when I'm doing this administration, it's uh, often helping my colleagues or, you know, that kind of thing.

And helping, um, the department as a whole, which is, which is nice. And I think that, that at York there, there's definitely that feeling of this camaraderie in the department. There's a lot less politics than perhaps there might be in other places. And it's a really nice, um, it's a really nice team and we get on really well.

And so, so you, you feel less. Well, personally, I feel I don't [01:15:00] mind doing some of the tasks so much because it's, it's to contribute to, to, to the group. And, you know, if I don't do it, then one of my friends is gonna have to do it. So, you know, it's, it, it makes you want to, to take part in these aspects, if that makes sense.

But yeah, it's been, it's been good. It's, I just don't like the title lecturer because then if you're outside of the uk, and even if you're inside of the UK and you, you don't know much, you know, you don't know about. The, the role of an academic, then people just think you teach. And it's like, well, no, I don't just teach.

It's, uh, it's the research element. So that, that's the only, the only the, the type, the, the title is a bit nice.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I guess that's a matter of time, right?

Catherine Preston: Yeah. So a lot of institutions in the UK are changing to that as assistant professor, associate professor kind of titles, but

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Well, I mean also in terms of you

Catherine Preston: Oh yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: At some point,

Catherine Preston: well, when I

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: not being a lecturer.

Catherine Preston: Oh yeah. Well, yeah, but then you're, it's senior lecturer and then it's reader or professor. So

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, reader sounds even weirder.

Catherine Preston: It is, isn't it? Well, you experience how

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you read. [01:16:00] Yeah. Okay.

Catherine Preston: So I have to wait until the professor, so I don't know whether, yeah.

Anyway. But um, not every academic becomes a professor, so we, we'll see. Um, but yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But is, so one thing I always wondered with teaching, it always. I mean, I've obviously never done any, but it always seemed to me that it would be better to do a, um, an optional or elective module.

Catherine Preston: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Is rather than one where like everyone has to do it because like developmental psychology is part of the curriculum.

Uh, is, is I would I would imagine that yours would be optional, right?

Catherine Preston: Yes. Yes. So, so that, yeah. So I've done, I've taught both. Uh, and I think that, I mean, there was definitely, certainly some of the, the people in our, um, department who teach these core modules do it in a way where we, they really engage students, but yeah, so, but to do my.

My module, then people have chosen to do [01:17:00] it. And, and normally it's, I've, I've got lots of students. It's quite a popular module because it's sort of, uh, linking a bit to clinical stuff, which, which I think a lot of students, so what is the, what exactly it's called Body, what's the title? It's called Body Representation.

So I do, um, I talk about body illusions. So I have, I have lectures on that, and then I have, um, we look at different aspects. So I look at, um, eating disorders. Um, I look at the body and pain. I look at kind of, um, uh, action awareness. So, and different stroke conditions where like anosognosia for hemiplegia, I dunno if you've heard of that one, where people are, um, disabled following stroke and unaware of their disability, so, right.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.

Catherine Preston: So that kind of thing. So I try to make it nice and clinical related, which is, um, obviously it meets my interest, but also a lot of the students. Like that kind of thing too, so, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I was about say that, that those are the kind of like, yeah. Oliver Sachs kind of things that are just very [01:18:00] easy to understand and very counterintuitive or confusing.

Catherine Preston: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, so like, kind of very interesting in that way.

Catherine Preston: Absolutely.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Kind of.

Catherine Preston: Yes.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: What was, what was the, what's it called again? Prognosis

Catherine Preston: for hemiplegia?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So hemiplegia is when you can't see half your lesion?

Catherine Preston: No, no. That's Hemi opia. But the hemiplegia is, um, paralysis on one side of the body. So it's someone typically right hemisphere stroke.

They are, um, paralyzed, uh, down the left side of their body, but they are unaware of their paralysis. So, um, they might just deny that they're paralyzed. So I've worked with, I've, I've, I've got papers, um, where I published, tested these patients before and, um, you know, I've had people saying, yeah, I can ride a bike still.

And I'm like, oh. When I spoke to him, I was a bit like, um, I asked him why he was in hospital and he said, oh, 'cause my wife isn't well. And it's like, okay, actually it's 'cause you're disabled. And he didn't recognize that element that he was disabled. But you can [01:19:00] also, was his wife actually in hospital or No, no, no.

Was that also completely admitted that that wasn't true? Yeah, exactly. But uh, but then you also get patients who there's, it's a complicated condition with many different presentations, but you also get patients who might admit that they have a disability, but then try and get out bed, try and do stuff, um, as if they don't have a disability.

And then, you know, so there's lots of, it's, it's often quite short term following, um, a severe, um, white hemispheres stroke. But, um. Some people can have it for a long, long duration, and obviously it can be inhibitory for, um, uh, rehabilitation. If you don't think you're, if you don't think you're ill, why would you take part in the physio or, or whatever.

So, um, and also you can learn a little bit about self-awareness so people aren't, you know, after with such clear evidence that they, you know, they're paralyzed on one side of their body. Such clear evidence that they can't. Move it [01:20:00] and they're denying it or not aware of it, then I think that's really interesting learning about, and that's why I like these kind of conditions that fascinated me when I was a student.

It's like, I can't imagine being that person and, and just,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah.

Catherine Preston: What is the subjective experience like of, of, of being? Unaware of your disability. So I think, yeah, it's a really fascinating condition. Um, yeah, that, that, that lecture particularly is also very popular.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.

Catherine Preston: So

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: can you try rubber hand illusion with it?

Or like, does paralysis mean they can't move or they also can't feel anything?

Catherine Preston: Um, so a lot of the patients can't feel anything, but some can and they have done. Um, so, um, there's a researcher at UCL called Katerina and she's done, um, and she worked, I think together with Paul Jenkinson. I collaborate with both of them.

They're lovely and brilliant researchers and they've done some sort of rubber hand style, um, experiments with these [01:21:00] patients. And, um, what they find, if I remember rightly, is that, that just placing a hand in front of them. Often they just think it's their hand, right? So they readily accept it's hand. Okay.

So there's some, but there's, yeah, so you can definitely do some work with those, but they're quite rare and difficult to work with patients. So, 'cause as I said, it's often, often quite a severe stroke. I mean, I, I, as part of my PhD, I, I did work with neglect patients, so these are people who are, have a lack of awareness of one side of space.

So, um, and again, they, they were sort of similar, right hemisphere. Um, uh, brain damage similar to the anosognosia, except Anosognosia is more rare. Um, but they, um, they're often really sick. So I remember sort of like learning about patient going in to see him and he had passed away, that kind of thing. So you are talking about people testing, uh, at the bedside often.

Um, but it was when I was looking for, for neglect [01:22:00] patients that I happened to just come across a file of, of a guy and I looked at his medical notes and I was like, oh, anosognosia. And so then we did some experiments with him and it was really fascinating. But yeah, they're, they're difficult to come across and, and test, but yeah, they're really fascinating condition and, and these, some sort of work has been done with those with kind of rubber hands, but yeah.

So that's, that's, yeah, it's a popular module. A popular module, a popular lecture. So that, and the eating disorders, they love, they're interesting. They love eating disorders. People love eating disorders. They're fascinated by eating disorders because it's, uh, I guess a lot of our students know someone who has had an eating disorder or something like that.

So there's that personal connection. So I think there's that, that interest, um, which is, you know, but the, the research is hard to do on, on all these populations because, yeah. Yeah. So

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'm curious about, one thing you said earlier when you said you still need [01:23:00] mentoring.

Catherine Preston: Mm-hmm.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So I'm curious, how does that happen?

If it's so, you know, for people like me, PhD students, postdocs, there's a, it's very, I should say, it's built into the system that you have mentoring, right? Yeah. Um. How, how do you go about that if you don't, you know, if officially in that sense you don't have someone whose lab you're working in and who looks over your shoulders Yeah.

As part of their job in that sense.

Catherine Preston: Yeah. So, uh, I think the departments are getting, uh, better at this. Um, and our department is really good. I mean, I don't have, I did, when I started my lectureship actually, I got, um, I got given two mentors. I got a teaching mentor and um, a, uh, research mentor and, um, they were both fantastic actually.

They're both great. Um, and so they're people that I'm meant to go to and speak to about advice for this. So,

so

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: is that, sorry, is that normal? I'd never heard of

Catherine Preston: this. Well, I don't know. I think it's probably, as I said, I think [01:24:00] it's a developing thing, so hopefully it's gonna be more normal. There's also things like the early career, um, so we have, what do we, um, ECR the early.

Career research forum. I think that we have, it's more mostly for postdocs, but um, new sort of lecturers are also included in, in this. Um, so they, they put on events and different sort of training and stuff for, you know, the facilities and, and social networks for this, for these members, which is, which is good.

Um, but yeah, o otherwise you're just kind of having a good, um. Having a good relationship with just your, um, your, your work colleagues is really useful. So, as I said, there's a really good atmosphere at York. It's really nice. They, everyone's keen to help each other, so there's initiatives to help. Um, so we have obviously more experienced professors and stuff who have worked on, um, [01:25:00] you know, done loads of grants and also been on boards for grants, um, for grant funding bodies.

And so there are people that you can go to, to talk to about, um, the best options and, and, and to can help guide you through the process. So, um, yeah, so it's might not be, it depends, I guess it really would depend rather than for a PhD student who presumably should always have their. PhD supervisor and probably a supervisory team.

So you might have two supervisors, right? Perhaps. And, and actually at York we have something called a thesis advisory panel. So you get other, uh, faculty members come in and, uh, your PhD students regularly, um, present to them. And so there's more, so there's more people outside your supervision team.

There's a, like, there's more people that you can turn to, which is really useful and get feedback from slightly different areas, which is, which is again, really good. So it, I think it's really dependent Yeah. On, on maybe where you work, but, um. Um, mm-hmm. And even where, I [01:26:00] think it's really good at York, but um, it's, it's getting more, um, formalized.

So they're sort of, you know, it was more informal and now they're sort of writing these roles into people's sort of workloads. So you, you know, one of the problems that I had when you're trying to get feedback from grants, it's like, oh, I don't wanna, they're obviously really busy. I don't wanna bother them.

But now it's part of their job description that they have to help you out with your grant proposal. So I'm hoping that, that, you know, that should be good for the future. And I think it's a, a great, a great system. Um, but I think even professors, you know, you need, you can take advice, you can learn from other researchers.

Um. And I think you, and recognizing that is hopefully a good thing. Um, so I'm still learning, I'm learning new methods all the time and you know, things like that. Um, working with. In art to get beautiful graphs. Whereas, you know, I probably spent all my training building them [01:27:00] painstakingly in Excel and you know, so it's sort of, you can perhaps learn from people who are, uh, younger than you can help you sort of, um, or at least academically younger than you, uh, can help you, uh, uh, engage in these kind of new technology and stuff.

So there's, there's definitely learning needs to continue throughout your career. Um, and yeah, mentoring, you know, I don't have all the answers and, um, not all of them. Not all of them. Lots of them. No, not really. But yeah, so I think it's really important. But, um, I, I'm really fortunate to work at a very good department, which, which helps with that.

Um, uh, but I'm hoping it's generally across academia. I think that there's more is being put in place to provide, to provide that kind of mentorship throughout your career and not just when you're a student. So.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: It sounds really cool. I mean, um, yeah, I, I just, uh, I mean, it would make sense that you [01:28:00] would have this kind of, um, especially like in your case when you come new to the department Right.

It's not like, you know, everyone and everything that

Catherine Preston: Absolutely

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: think in that kind of sense. It's probably also good to just have someone who Yeah. Helps you out Yeah. In a kind of formal

Catherine Preston: Yeah, exactly. Someone that you feel like you can just go knock on their door and like, can you get, can we go for a coffee?

So, you know, um, which, and my two mentors are, are very good friends now. So, um, one of them is left York, but we are still, we still work together. And she's a really good friend and the other one is a professor in the department. He's, he's so lovely. So, um, you know, they're, they were, they're really good. So yeah.

That's how that works. But

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Cool.

Catherine Preston: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, do we still have like 10, 15 minutes? Yeah. Or, uh, I was curious. One, uh. So how do you decide what to kind of learn yourself and what maybe your students would learn? So let's say something like making nice figures in [01:29:00] R um, I mean, obviously you can do more than just figures in R Yeah.

But do you know what I'm trying to get at? Like, sometimes it's like, is it really worth the time for you to learn all this stuff if someone in the lab can already do it, for example? Or

Catherine Preston: Yeah. Yeah. I,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: um, or do you think you should kind of more or less be able to do most of those things that you ask a PhD student to be able to do or,

Catherine Preston: yeah.

So right now, um, I would like to do, I, I'm, you know, uh, trying to be able to do everything that I ask my PhD students to do. We might learn at the same time. So obviously I know you can do more in r and, um, and it was revolution and I, and I can do more in r and it was revolutionary to be like, uh, try like doing para analyses, right?

And I'm, I'm not a. Big fan of analyses because of estimated effect sizes are often just fucked out there. But anyway, so I, but I, I, so I hadn't, and I, I, using some [01:30:00] different software for that, which I always found a bit like clumsy and not very great. And I was like, oh, I'll just look how, how to do it and ah, and I'll learn how to do that.

And it took me about 10 minutes to learn how to do that, and I was like, this is great. This is so much easier. Why didn't I do like this to start with? So, um, uh, yeah, so absolutely. Uh, but the, and the other thing, um, is I've been doing a bit of structural equation modeling. So I've said that I've dabbled a bit in this kind of questionnaire stuff, but obviously we want to do really robust analysis, um, and doing, learning how to do that in our, so one of my PhD students, we, we did it in a different software, but we couldn't do all the analysis we wanted to.

So she's, um, learning it in our, and I'm trying to learn it in our at the same time. So it's, um, it might not all. I might not be able to tell her what to do, but I'm hoping that, and if she has struggles, I've, I'm kind of, I can help with the guidance through that rather than just purely delegating, perhaps having a [01:31:00] post.

But even having a postdoc, like if you had a postdoc that's really good at a particular type of analysis and you didn't really have a clue how to do it yourself when they leave, what are you gonna do then? So, uh, maybe, uh, you know, in many years time, I'll be too busy and I just cannot, you just cannot learn how to do everything.

But at the moment, I'm at a point where I'm trying to be able to, if I ask something. Or we decide with the student that we should incorporate some sort of analysis or we should use a different program for something, then I try to be able to do it myself so I can check, not that I don't trust them, but you know, you can, if they have problems or something, I can check and I can go through it myself and, and, and make sure that it's correct.

Um, uh, so yes. And also, you know, I don't wanna ask asking them to do something which is really difficult and you know, if it's good.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean part of the reason of the question was also I guess you can, [01:32:00] how should we say? In some, I mean, of course it's always nice to check each other's stuff and that kind of stuff, but I also wonder it's.

You know, there is also a benefit to having complimentary skills, right? Yeah. Where your PhD student really adds something that, um, for whatever reason you couldn't or can't do right now.

Catherine Preston: Oh yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So then there's a, you know, just seeing, there's a bit of a, like, should we really like be able, like should this, do you want to have like perfect overlap between two people or do you

Catherine Preston: I don't think Yeah, but the, the complimentaries, yeah.

I mean they, they'll probably end up being better at it than me for start, because they might hopefully have more time to engage and learn of these things. But also the complimentary skills might or come from different ways, like perspectives in, um, where they're coming from for designing experiments.

And, and that's certainly been the case with my. With my PhD students, like, um, with one of them, I really, uh, my, my first PhD student, I really watched [01:33:00] that grow over time. The way he obvi, I think it came with confidence as well, where he sort of, um, uh, grew in his ability to sort of like, oh, make suggestions and, and come with his own ideas.

And that was really lovely to see. And my other student was very, um, came with her own ideas from the beginning, and that was really interesting because it's pushed me in directions that I wouldn't necessarily go. And that's, um, and so we, we get that anyway. And yeah, I think definitely with, uh, with some of the analysis that probably some of my students are, I, I could do it, but I think that they're probably better at it than me.

So, um, you know, but, um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah,

Catherine Preston: I, I, and I guess. I'd like, I'd like with, certainly with collaborators, like I, I, I like to work with other academics a lot in science. I like to collaborate. I think that's adds value. I just like to be able to talk my ideas with someone and it's nice to, um, [01:34:00] get perspectives from other people and their complimentary skills, uh, are really good.

So I've worked, when we did all this sort of rubber hand allusion and monkey hand delusion with kids, I worked with a developmental psychologist, so that was really useful. Um, and yeah, so we've, it's, it's, it's nice that there, I really like to have complimentary skills, but I guess with students you just, you don't, I don't want to, I want to be able to support them and so I feel like I'd feel bad to sort of, oh, learn this and I'm not gonna.

Not gonna be there to offer any sort, sort of support through their learning process. So, um, yeah, maybe postdocs it might be slightly different, but, um, but definitely with students, I, I'd like, I, I don't like to ask them to do things that either I, either I couldn't do or I wouldn't be prepared to learn alongside them to be able to support them through it.

'cause if they get stuck, then they should be able to turn to me, even if I'm also stuck, [01:35:00] that might make them feel better. Right. It's like, oh, I'm not sure. Yeah. I'm also stuck. Let's, let's find someone else to ask. But, you know, it's sort of, at least we do it together and it doesn't make them feel that Yeah.

That they're lost on their own.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Then maybe as a kind of final question, so let's say someone has been listening to this and thinking, I'd really like to work as a master student, PhD student fair talk with you. What are the, what kind of people are you looking for? Or if you are looking for people, and if so, how can they kind of, you know, for PhDs?

Are there, I'm assuming there programs in York that they can apply for

Catherine Preston: or? Yeah, so we have, um, so we have these, uh, sort of departmental studentships that come, that come about, um, which, um, they, you normally like to start thinking about it at the beginning of the autumn and their applications are in January and they do sort of interviews in February.

Um, so we tend to, we have some of those every year. [01:36:00] Um, but uh, there are also other. Um, other avenues, um, to possibly apply for funding because obviously all these things are really competitive, so, um, but uh, yeah, so there are other avenues. So I guess if people are interested, they should email, they should email me.

But pe kind of people that I'm, I mean, I have, I have one PhD student who's in her final year, and I have another PhD, well, a PhD, she's just got some ESS ESRC funding, so she's doing a master's year and then starting, um, and then started with me the year after. But, um, I, what I'm looking for is, are people who are smart and have interests in that are similar to mine.

So, um. Um, I guess quite often I get emails with people who just want to do eating disorder research, um, with patients and stuff. Whereas I guess, uh, probably looking for people who are more sort of [01:37:00] broadly interested in, uh, body representations and how that can, um, then be applied. Because as I think as, as I've said before, the, uh, likelihood within a PhD to definitely, you know, once you've applied for NHS ethics and engaged, um, with clinicians, you, the likelihood of doing a whole PhD on eating disorders with eating disorder patients is probably quite slim.

Um, but I'm just bright interested students, so I'm kind of, um, yeah, I've, I've had some great PhD students so far, so I'm hoping that that will, that will long continue. Um, but yeah, always, always happy to work with, um. People who are interested and it, they've got always gotta read your papers. I'm a sucker for someone who's like, oh, I read your paper on this.

And I found it really ing Oh, well you've read my paper. Lovely. I'm a sucker. That gets me every time. I'm like, oh, okay. I've taken on extra pe um, undergraduate students more than my quota this year because people have gone on, I shouldn't say this worth [01:38:00] more people do it. Uh, because people have gone on and read my papers and got in touch and like, maybe,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah.

Catherine Preston: Okay. I'm bit sucker.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, now they're just, they also don't have to, they'll just say it. They'll know that you'll just be so happy

Catherine Preston: then. Well, yeah, but then maybe I'll test them on it. There's too many people do this'll and you're like, oh, so what did you think of this thing? And then like, well get them in for a chat in the lab and then see if they've really read it.

But, um. So, uh, yeah. Yeah. But I think it's like most academics, like if you are, if you are, if people, people have read your research and are really understand what you are, instead of just the, oh, eating disorder research, that's what she does, but actually read your papers and understand what research you do and are interested in that, then I think that most people, uh, most academics, uh, um, can be swayed by that enthusiasm because this is, because that's what I love.

That's what I'm interested in. So I meet someone who's interested in it too, then, you know, I'll waffle on for them for hours about it and, and enjoy that. And you know that, that's why, yeah. So that's the key for any PhD as advice for anyone [01:39:00] applying for a PhD. Look up your supervisors and read their papers.

And let them know you've read their papers. And then that's, uh, then you're halfway there really. So obviously you've still gotta get the funding, but you know,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: but then again, you'll have enormous grants, so,

Catherine Preston: ah, well I hope that that will be

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: easy.

Catherine Preston: I hope that you are predicting the future Well, but, um, uh, we'll see.

So, fingers crossed, but yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay, cool. I think I've been taking over a lot of your time now.

Catherine Preston: That's alright. It's been, it's been nice. I hope, uh, I.

3. Catherine Preston: Bodily illusions, eating disorders, and pregnancy

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