A NEWLY-APPOINTED professor at Oxford University is hoping to ‘revolutionise’ popular understanding of autism and how it affects empathy.

Professor Geoff Bird, who joined the university earlier this year as Associate Professor in Experimental Psychology, said he aimed to expand the university’s effort into understanding autism.

In 2010, Professor Bird conducted a brain scanning experiment that proved people diagnosed with autism can still show empathy, contrary to popular belief.

The experiment also showed that non-autistic people may lack empathy.

According to researchers about half of people with autism actually have a different condition, alexithmya, which makes it difficult for people to determine what emotions they are feeling.

The same condition affects about eight per cent of the total population.

Speaking to the university’s Oxford Today publication, Professor Bird said: “Ask anyone in the field what characterises autism and they’ll say a lack of empathy. We think that’s completely inaccurate.

“Individuals with autism are not unempathetic, psychopathic monsters.

“I have heard so many stories about people who simply cannot get jobs or even volunteer their time because of this damaging myth, which causes additional frustration for the parents of autistic individuals.

“Individuals with alexithymia are also not psychopaths, of course, although they may struggle to understand emotions in a typical way.”

Professor Bird moved to Oxford in January 2017 and is also a Tutorial Fellow in Psychology at Brasenose College.