Empathy
If you work for a large company and share my lack of interpersonal skills, before long you will probably get sent on a business communication course. As you are dozing through the Power Point slides, you may spot one claiming that only 7% of our communication is achieved through the words we say, with 93% coming from non-verbal means such as body language (55%) and tone of voice (38%). At this point, if you want to get along in the corporate world, my top tip is to keep your fucking mouth shut. Resist any temptation to jolt out of your stupor and call bullshit, even though these often regurgitated ‘facts’ are arse-gravy of the highest order.
If you don’t believe me, I suggest actually thinking about it for a moment. If you ever urgently need to tell someone that their house is on fire and have a choice between a text-only message describing the situation, or a silent video where you express the nature of the emergency through interpretive dance, you would be an idiot to choose the latter. But according to the widely accepted corporate factoid, bodily movement is over 8 times more effective at getting the message across. We should redesign our emergency service helplines immediately.
Although watching someone speak is no doubt powerful, I cannot think of a single communication strategy where the actual words are not vastly more important than visual or audio clues. I know that as a writer I am probably biased, but try watching a series of TED talks with the sound muted and see how much useful information you pick up.
Really? TED Talks? Most of them are probably better on mute. Especially yours.
The oddly specific 7% rule is one of those pseudo-facts that has been repeated so often, mostly in ditch-water dull corporate training presentations, that it is believed as gospel. In reality, even at its origins, it has nothing to do with communicating complex information. It comes from a 1971 book by Albert Mehrabian called Silent Messages and is based on his research into people saying single words. The words chosen were deliberately ambiguous, such as ‘maybe’, ‘oh’ and ‘thanks’, and subjects were told to interpret their meanings based on a sound-only recording, a short video clip or a written transcript.
Unsurprisingly, when someone hears a recording of the word ‘thanks’ in a mocking or angry voice, they are more likely to pick up the true meaning than if the same word is just written down. They are even more likely to interpret it correctly when they can see the face of the person saying it, giving rise to the famous 55:38:7 split. In the case of single, ambiguous words, this is entirely expected, and will depend heavily on the word choice. The word ‘cat’ for instance would have a very different split. But over the years it has transmogrified into a belief that intonation, facial expression and body language are vastly more important than content, which any practised orator will tell you is garbage.
Although it is considerably more affecting to hear a recording of Churchill talking about riding out the storm of war and outliving the menace of tyranny, no one would read a transcript of his famous speech and wonder if he was being sarcastic. Similarly, if he had delivered lines of gibberish with exactly the same pacing and intonation, I sincerely doubt it would have inspired anybody.
This does not mean that body language and vocal cadence is not important in our communications with the world. If fact, some people place an extraordinary amount of value on such things, often unwittingly. But we must remember that it is content that should be valued most highly, and words are far more vital and enduring than tone. Because if we focus too strongly on non-literal communication, it appears that all of us, no matter how in tune and empathetic we might think we are, can easily get things terribly wrong.
Hard to Read
I have always been a bit odd. In the past on this blog I have discussed my introversion, but one of the most frustrating things in my life has been an inability to display appropriate body language and facial expression, especially during times of stress. My emotional reactions to extreme situations are often perceived as distant and detached, as if I have no emotion to express. Ironically, this is never more the case than when I have powerful feelings swirling around inside. At such times, my mask of normality is at its most likely to slip.
An inability to appropriately display emotion does not make you many friends and can create difficulties when it comes to managing close relationships. People will, quite naturally, assume that you are not feeling anything, simply because you do not react in the expected way. You can say all the right words, do all the right things, show support in all the correct ways, but you are not trusted because you appear not to be feeling. It’s not quite 93%, but it can sometimes feel that way.
At such times, I often think back to the case of Joanna Lees, the young British backpacker who, whilst traveling across the Australian outback, was subjected to one of the most terrifying ordeals imaginable. Her case, and particularly the media and public’s reaction to it, left a lasting impression on me as a young man. In it, I saw the inevitable consequence of a world that thinks it knows how to read someone’s mind, yet consistently fails to do so correctly.
Her story shows the terrible places to which a mass failure of empathy can lead. For me, this failure occasionally frustrates, has led to a few disastrous media interviews and caused some relationship problems. For Joanna Lees, it very nearly cost her everything.
Let’s Get the Bitch
On the evening of the 14th July 2001, Joanna Lees and Peter Falconio were relaxed and content, having spent the day in Alice Springs, a small town at the heart of Central Australia. As the shadows began to lengthen, they pulled their camper van into a lay-by North of the town and enjoyed a perfect sunset, drinking cocktails and smoking a joint. They could have spent the night by the roadside, but instead decided to push on, driving through the dark on the infamous Stuart Highway, the three thousand kilometre road that bisects Australia from North to South.
In the pitch black of the Central Australian night, another driver flagged them down and informed the couple that they he thought they had engine trouble. Falconio walked around to the back of the vehicle to investigate and was shot by the stranger, who then returned to the front, pressed a gun to Lees’ head and proceeded to tie her up. Realising that things were looking incredibly bleak, and unable to get an answer when she called her boyfriend’s name, Lees started to fight. She kicked and screamed as her attacker attempted to bind her legs, prompting him to strike her hard about the head. This subdued her briefly and he carried her over to his truck, throwing her into the back.
Whilst the killer was distracted, probably moving Falconio’s body out of sight, Lees managed to slide out the back of the vehicle, running from the road and hiding in the surrounding saltbush. At that time of year, Central Australia gets incredibly cold at night and Lees, wearing only a t-shirt and shorts, stayed still and silent for hours. Three or four times, the killer came within a few feet of her as he searched the surrounding bush with his torch and dog. After five hours of abject terror and with her hands still bound, Lees believed she was finally alone, managed to flag down a passing truck and was driven to safety.
What should have been a story of bravery, courage and an extraordinary will to live, rapidly turned into something else. Lees initially called the police from a crowded bar, but the local station did not answer, and the nearby Alice Springs force ignored her, thinking it was a prank call. Eventually a search for Falconio and his killer was instigated the following morning, but for unknown reasons, CCTV footage from a nearby garage of a driver and vehicle that perfectly fitted Lees’ description of the attacker, was withheld for several weeks.
There was more information that confirmed Lees’ story, but for some reason, none of it was released by the police. Three passing motorists had seen the two vehicles parked by the side of the road. One even reported seeing a torchlight searching the surrounding bush. All the descriptions fitted perfectly with Lees’ timeline of events, yet again, this evidence was withheld from the public and press.
The police were also aware that a few weeks previously, three tourists in a similar camper van had been run off the road and threatened by someone closely matching the attacker’s description. And although there was extensive photographic evidence of the injuries Lees received on the night, and the t-shirt she had been wearing was stained with someone else’s blood, this information was also withheld in a seeming attempt to publicly discredit Lees’ account.
It did not help that there was something about Lees that people just didn’t like. Behind closed doors, although they maintained an outward pretence that they were searching for the killer, the police were already accusing her of murder. It seems that some members of the Australian force had taken an instant dislike to Lees, didn’t believe her story, and actively took steps to withhold confirming evidence. Perhaps it was an attempt to protect the reputation of their country, reliant as it was on tourist trade. Or maybe there was something about Lees that led to an instinctive distrust, leading even experienced officers to disregard the evidence in front of them.
After a short burst of sympathy, the press and public also began to turn, as journalists picked at apparent holes in her account. Lees was young, glamorous, with a compelling story and the press clamoured for exclusive interviews. UK tabloids offered staggering sums of money, but Lees consistently denied them the access they craved. As a result, angry journalists and editors started to attack Lees in print, pulling apart her character, accusing her of being manipulative and cold. ‘Let’s get the bitch’ a well-known UK tabloid editor reportedly said at the time, and they did just that. A series of speculative articles cast doubt on every aspect of her story. Why was she not showing emotion? Why were we not allowed to inspect her grief? Surely this cold, hard woman did not deserve our sympathy.
When Lees appeared for a press conference wearing a tight t-shirt with the slogan ‘Cheeky Monkey’ across her chest, she was widely vilified as a scheming, insensitive slut. In an astonishing leap, it was implied that her brazenly sloganed top was proof that she was a violent, cold-blooded killer.
The public, in Australia and the UK, seemed to agree. Hatred and resentment of Lees was growing every day, and the t-shirt became proof of her guilt. No one stopped to think that she was an innocent young victim who had been travelling around Australia at the time. The police had confiscated most of her belongings as evidence and the offending top was the only one she had that was clean. As the centre of one of the world’s biggest news stories, she could hardly pop down to the shops. As a recent victim of a terrible crime, she probably did not have the wherewithal or inclination to do so.
Not once was it questioned why the police, who were supposed to be looking after her at the time, did not provide her with something more appropriate, or at least advise the frightened, grieving young woman in their charge to wear something else. And absolutely no one watching said, it is just a fucking t-shirt, it tells you nothing about what she is going through inside. We are, after all, frequently told how outward signals are far more important than the words someone is saying.
Partly because the early focus of their investigation had been on Lees, the Australian police had few leads, could not find a body, and had no trace of a murder weapon. Although a lot of blood marked the spot where Falconio had been shot, no footprints were found at the scene, apart from two belonging to Lees, a fact frequently waved as evidence of her guilt. In public she appeared increasingly cold and hard, fighting back at press criticism, rightly accusing journalists of misquoting and misrepresenting her. It did not help that the only interview she had given since her ordeal had been an unwitting one, when a female journalist befriended her in a bar and reported their conversation.
Eventually, after refusing massive amounts of tabloid money, Lees agreed to be interviewed on television by Martin Basheer, reportedly being paid $80,000. Predictably, the newspaper journalists she had spurned were even more furious, doubling down on their accusations and attacks. Taking cash meant she was money grabbing and exploitative, despite the fact they had offered her far more. When the interview aired, she was derided even further, accused of being emotionless and controlled in her answers. Her obviously defensive body language was evidence she was lying. Her tears when she talked about Peter were forced and false.
Lees was a 27-year-old woman who had cowered for hours in the cold and dark whilst a psychopathic killer prowled through the outback in search of her blood. She had witnessed her boyfriend’s brutal murder, been beaten, bound and dumped in the back of a truck. She had contemplated her own violent rape and slaying, only escaping by a hair’s breadth. Yet the public clamour against her led Basheer, an interviewer supposedly known for his compassion and fairness, to ask her outright if she had murdered Falconio. She was then criticised in the press for looking shocked and angry at the suggestion.
Basheer also questioned her at length about why the police didn’t find the killer’s footprints, as if she might have an insight into their forensic failures. He even quizzed her about the ‘mystery’ regarding the presence of the killer’s blood on her t-shirt, as if this somehow implicated her, rather than proving the opposite. She answered his questions as best she could, but there is no denying that she appeared cold, unlikable and removed. Looking back, it is hardly surprising. I suspect that she was fucking furious.
An industry grew up around Lees’ supposed guilt, and for two years it was widely assumed by the public and media that she had callously killed Falconio and gotten away with it. Although I cannot remember clearly, and I would like to think the opposite, I suspect that at the time I also thought that she was guilty as sin. Books were written, movies made, her every move, word and action picked apart. An awful lot of people really hated Joanna Lees. They hated her so much that they were convinced, with little evidence, that she murdered her boyfriend in cold blood and somehow disposed of his body in the Australian outback.
Then, in a twist that few expected, in 2003, Bradley John Murdock was arrested for the abduction and rape of a woman and her child. Although he was eventually acquitted of that crime, DNA evidence unequivocally linked Murdock, a man with a history of violent firearms offences, to the blood found on Lees’ shirt. He closely fitted the physical description Lees had provided, owned a similar vehicle, kept the same breed of dog, and had been around Alice Springs at the time of the attack. Even more damningly, as police searched through Murdock’s possessions, they found a hair tie that had belonged to Lees. It was kept in his wallet and he had seemingly been carrying it around as some sort of trophy.
In 2005, Murdock was convicted of Falconio’s murder and the attack on Lees. Although the murder weapon and body have never been found, at least a line can now be drawn under this horrible incident. Surely the press and members of the public who accused Lees, a vulnerable and deeply traumatised young woman, would now apologise and move on.
To some extent this has been the case, but there are accusers that remain, egged on by Murdock’s refusal to admit his crimes. Some journalists still maintain that Lees is the killer, and You Tube videos regularly appear, made by self-proclaimed body language and micro-expression experts, slowing down videos of her interviews to prove her lies.
The problem, it seems, is that Lees was not the victim people were looking for. When a dramatic, against-all-odds story of survival appeared, with an attractive young woman fleeing from a crazed killer just like in the movies, the world looked on expectantly. But Lees did not fit the mould. She did not react how we thought she should. There were few public tears. There was no impassioned speech. There was no comforting father with an arm around her, because Lees did not grow up with a father around.
The archetypal image of an attractive, carefree young British backpacker is usually one of a well bred public school girl on her gap year before university. But that was not Lees. She was older than most backpackers and had led a tough life, growing up in a deprived former mining town in Northern England, spending much of her youth caring for her chronically ill single parent mother. She had been raised not to complain, not to take any shit, and to get on with things in a straightforward, no nonsense way.
She was also, quite clearly, hard as a coffin nail. With a gun pressed to her forehead, her hands tied behind her back and her boyfriend lying dead a few feet away, she fought like a cougar. She kicked and screamed despite being beaten by a powerful armed man twice her size. She seized the only few seconds when escape was possible, shimmying through a tiny gap with her hands tied, hiding for hours in the terrifying dark of an outback night. She had the presence of mind to flag down a truck, whose journey would be registered, rather than a private car, knowing that a lone woman with her hands restrained was still at risk. These are all things that we assume that we might do to survive, but the stark reality is that most untrained people in similar situations end up dead.
The qualities that allowed Lees to get through that awful night were not ones that the public found endearing. She was not the shy and callow victim waiting to be saved by a handsome prince. She was brave and hardened, willing to fight to the death. That might not make you lovable, but it probably helps you survive until morning. If Lees had been different in character and upbringing, people might have believed her story. But a different Joanna Lees would probably not have lived to tell it.
When Lees did not react like victims are supposed to, she was instantly distrusted and attacked, even by trained police officers. When people looked into her eyes and could not read her thoughts, her inscrutability led them to believe the very worst. They concluded that she must be evil in character, lacking in humanity.
We all like to think that we have a strong sense of empathy, but few of us ever stop to think about what empathy actually is. Empathy is not just reading someone’s emotions or decoding their facial expressions. Empathy is a deep understanding of how someone completely different to you might react to a situation or circumstance. Very few people actually try and reach this level. They see Joanna Lees, and when she does not react in the way that they think she should, they do not attempt to empathise. They do not view the world from her perspective and try to comprehend her actions. They have such a profoundly inflated view of their own natural mind reading ability, that they instantly assume she is lying.
Even when the real killer is jailed, some still refuse to accept that they might be wrong. Failure of empathy it is one of the darkest, most dehumanising and violent forces there is, but that failure is not just the preserve of psychopaths like Murdock. It can be seen in the public reaction to the Joanna Lees story. But also in some of the most pervasive and destructive myths about conditions such as autism.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that Joanna Lees is autistic, merely that when under stress, she reacted in a way that most people found hard to read. I am also not suggesting that I am autistic, despite my introversion and history of communication difficulties. Although I would find no shame if it was the case, to be classified as autistic these issues would have to adversely affect several aspects of my life, and I don’t believe they do. But there is little doubting that I have a number of unusual interpersonal traits and I believe that this gives me a small insight into what it is to be on the receiving end of one of the most pervasive myths about autism. For although many people might consider empathy to be something that autistic people lack, the reality is very different indeed.
The Empathy Problem
Although it is a vitally important trait, often considered to be at the heart of what it means to be human, there is surprisingly little clarity in the psychology profession regarding how empathy should be defined. It is certainly not just reading people’s minds, although that does play a small part.
Empathy is best described as a four stage process, the first of which is an ability to notice someone is having an emotional reaction. The second stage requires the observer to correctly interpret that reaction, translating the words, facial expressions, body language and vocalisations they are seeing into a defined emotional state.
The third stage requires deeper and more complex thought processes, and is probably what most people think constitutes genuine empathy. Here, the observer places themselves into the mind of the subject and attempts to feel what they are going through, seeing the world from their perspective. Then, at stage four, the observer tries to react appropriately based on what they have seen and experienced.
Stage three is the only one that is unique to someone feeling genuine empathy for another human. Psychopaths are generally characterised by a lack of empathy, but tend to be highly capable of all the other stages, although at stage 4 they will often only react if it benefits them to do so. Stage three is also by far the hardest component of empathy to define and measure, being completely internal and private.
Although autism is a massively heterogenous condition and any generalisations are fraught, there is good evidence that many autistic people struggle with the first and second stages of empathy. This may be because an intense focus leads them to miss some of the nuances of social interaction, or just that they find it hard to interpret the emotional reactions of people with a completely different way of interacting with the world (5).
When it comes to stage three however, there is no evidence to suggest that autistic subjects are lacking or deficient at all. Many autistic people report a hyper arousal of their empathetic system, experiencing intense and uncontrollable empathy for others, something that might be expected from a group of people who are often hyper-tuned to their environment (4,5).
Although it is still largely hidden, these days technological advances allow us to peek under the hood of stage three empathy. When subjects are given brain scans whilst receiving electric shocks, their pain response can be monitored, seeing which parts of their brain light up as shocks are delivered. When their response is observed as loved ones are given the same shocks, if similar regions light up, that is a good indicator that third stage empathy is taking place. Such experiments find absolutely no difference in autistic subjects, who seem perfectly capable of strongly empathising with their loved ones’ pain (5).
Studies have also shown that autistic people are more inclined towards object personification than the rest of population, indicating that their empathy is more intense and all-encompassing than its neurotypical equivalent. This may explain the high prevalence of environmental awareness and activism within the autistic population (5). Many autistic people report viscerally feeling environmental destruction and climate change, in a way that some might consider strange. The deeply unpleasant reaction that openly autistic campaigners such as Greta Thunberg and Chris Packham have experienced, may have a lot to do with this intense sense of empathy for the natural world, something that many neurotypical observers find disconcerting. When Thunberg made her famous ‘how dare you’ speech to the United Nations in 2019, it was widely claimed by the right wing media, whose journalists suddenly seemed versed in performing remote psychological assessments, that she was disturbed and mentally ill. In truth, they were probably just failing to comprehend that such passion could exist for something that, to them, seems so intangible.
It is true that autistic people often score poorly when attempts are made to measure empathy, although this may well be due to inherent biases within the most commonly used systems of measurement. The Empathy Quotient for instance, provides a score based on questionnaires that assess all four stages of empathy together. Someone who struggles with stages one, two and four, but excels at seeing the world from another point of view, so scoring highly for questions relating to stage three, could easily be found to have an extremely low EQ. Similarly, a psychopath with exceptional talents for noticing, decoding and feigning reactions to emotions, but no genuine empathy, could score relatively highly (5).
Double Empathy
Having said all this, there is little doubt that a lot of autistic people really struggle with the fourth stage of empathy, the ability to show appropriate reactions and responses to someone else’s emotional state. Although stages one and two can be a challenge, it is forth stage failure that is almost certainly the greatest reason behind the persistent characterisation of autistic people as lacking in empathy. Also unhelpful is the high prevalence of alexithymia in autistic populations. This condition is thought to affect around half of autistic people, and is characterised by a lack of ability to describe emotions and internal states using words, clearly making any expression of empathy even more of a challenge (1). Of course, just because you cannot say it, doesn’t mean you don’t feel it, but that means little in a world that demands outward displays of emotion.
There is a significant problem here, something that has resulted in the marginalisation and dehumanisation of autistic people for many years. Empathy is considered to be an essential human trait, and a lack of it is felt to leave an dangerous, animalistic shell. This mischaracterisation of autism, something that has frequently led to tenuous links being drawn between school shootings and terrorism, is actually the result of a double empathy problem. The problems of communication are two way, but the pain is heaped up on one side.
It is true that autistic people struggle to read the emotions of non-autistic subjects, but a number of studies have shown that the reverse is also the case. Non-autistic observers are terrible at interpreting the emotions and intentions of autistic people, and often react in completely inappropriate , unhelpful ways. And although two neurotypical subjects placed together are likely to achieve higher levels of understanding and empathy, the same is also true when two autistic subjects interact (4). Unsurprisingly, minds that are similar have an increased likelihood of being able to understand and empathise with one another.
The empathy deficits observed with autism are best described as a two-way breakdown of communication, yet the dominant group has turned this into a problem of the minority. They have consistently refused to consider that neurotypical people might also be shit at empathising with those a bit different to themselves, mistaking difference for fault. They assume that there is no way that neurotypical people might be misinterpreting body language, missing the nuances of facial expression, or reacting in damaging, stigmatising ways. Surely they are all perfect mind readers, stunning empaths, brilliantly sensitive and appropriate at all times. I suspect that Joanna Lees would disagree. As would millions of autistic people, who have been on the receiving end of this arrogance for millennia.
Studies have shown that even family members hugely over-estimate the extent to which autistic subjects are self-centred and lacking in empathy. Trained medical professionals fare no better. The myth of autistic empathy deficit is so deeply engrained that when autistic subjects report that they feel empathy, they are often thought to be questioning doctors and disputing their own diagnosis. Many autistic people report pretending not to feel empathy during assessments, just so their diagnosis is not challenged (1,5). This meta-level of empathy deceit is worth remembering next time you are told the other pervasive autism myth, that autistic people have no theory of mind.
What appears to neurotypical viewers as a lack of empathy, is actually a result of them finding autistic emotions hard to read from the outside. It is of course hugely ironic that the myth of autistic people lacking in empathy has been created by observers failing to empathise with them. They have even failed to listen. Research into this area is only just beginning to catch up with what autistic people have been saying for many decades; that they do empathise, often in a profound way, and suffer only from a failure to be understood. As with so many issues surrounding disability, hardship comes not from an internal deficit, but from a world created to suit the dominant group. A world that puts such an emphasis on reacting in a societally endorsed way, that any deviation is seen as a malfunction of mind.
These problems are deadly serious. A perceived lack of empathy has driven the dehumanisation of autistic people, allowing horrific abuse and torture to be sanctioned in the name of therapy. But perhaps the greatest cruelty of all, is that few of the people doing this understand or appreciate what empathy really is. In a world so focused on surface appearance, someone lacking in true empathy can easily fake its existence. And at the same time, it is perfectly possible for an autistic person experiencing the most profoundly empathetic reactions, to be written off as emotionless, cold, or even mad.
Our society increasingly belongs to those who believe that surface appearances are all, and care little for deeper understanding. The veneer of autism, with its social awkwardness, lack of appropriate body language and unusual facial expressions, makes so much of life inaccessible. There is a near universal negative reaction to autistic people, leading to a lack of willingness to engage socially. This is, quite remarkably, even the case when nothing but a still photo of an autistic person is viewed (3). In a world where first impressions count for so much, autistic people do not stand a chance.
As a result, autistic people have smaller social networks, fewer friendships, difficulties securing employment, experience more loneliness and have a greatly reduced life quality. These poor outcomes persist for those with high intelligence, who are much more likely to suffer from depression, suicide, anxiety and mental illness than the rest of the population. The majority of these problems are caused by a world that judges autistic people from the outside, rather than making an effort to look within. The difficulties experienced by most autistic people are caused by a misfit between them and society. When that society is unwilling to change, those who are considered different are always going to suffer.
To get by in such a surface obsessed world, the only sensible strategy is to try and fake it. Pretend to react as people expect, spending years training your body and face to contort in ways that are completely unnatural. This is an astonishingly difficult thing to do, making the majority of social interactions terrifying and exhausting. Yet this camouflaging is something that seventy percent of autistic adults report doing most of the time, often resulting in huge damage to their physical and mental health (2).
Quite astonishingly, despite its prevalence, and regardless of the fact that autistic people have been talking about its existence for many years, until very recently, this camouflaging was virtually unstudied. As scientists begin to investigate it, a deeply troubling picture emerges, with implications for the mental health of millions of people. The more we learn, the more we realise that we will only ever truly understand autism if we spend more time listening to the voices of autistic people. And we also discover that things will only improve if we can change the world to meet them, rather than expecting them to hide in plain sight.
Of course, if we want to hear autistic voices, we may have to focus on the words they are saying, rather than the misleading cues that corporate training presentations deem as vital. Or failing that, we could work on developing some third stage empathy. Although to be fair, the non-autistic among us might find that too much of a challenge.
1. Sheppard E, Pillai D, Wong GT, Ropar D, Mitchell P. How Easy is it to Read the Minds of People with Autism Spectrum Disorder?. J Autism Dev Disord. 2016;46(4):1247‐1254. doi:10.1007/s10803-015-2662-8 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26603886/
2. Mandy W. (2019) – Social Camouflaging in Autism – Is it time to lose the mask? Autism, 23(8), 1879–1881. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1362361319878559
3. Sasson, N., Faso, D., Nugent, J. et al. Neurotypical Peers are Less Willing to Interact with Those with Autism based on Thin Slice Judgments. Sci Rep 7, 40700 (2017) https://www.nature.com/articles/srep40700
4. Milton, D. (2018) – The Double Empathy Problem – Network Autism Publication from Tizard Centre, University of Kent https://network.autism.org.uk/sites/default/files/ckfinder/files/The%20double%20empathy%20problem%20(PDF%20Ready).pdf
5. Fletcher-Watson S, Bird G. Autism and empathy: What are the real links?. Autism. 2020;24(1):3‐6. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1362361319883506
