I am currently the Director of the Bristol Cognitive Development Centre in the Experimental Psychology Department at the University of Bristol. I have been a research fellow at Cambridge University and University College London, a visiting scientist at MIT and a faculty professor at Harvard. I have been awarded an Alfred Sloan Fellowship in neuroscience, the Young Investigator Award from the International Society of Infancy Researchers, the Robert Fantz memorial award and recently voted to Fellowship status by the society of American Psychological Science.
I currently hold grants from the Leverhulme Trust, the Medical Research Council, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the Economic and Social Research Council and the Bial Foundation of Portugal to fund research into the origins of supernatural beliefs, the development of face and gaze processing, the development of inhibition and general cognitive development.
I am a great fan of British 1960’s horror movies especially Hammer Films and have a reasonable collection of original US ‘B’ movie posters. But like many irrational collections, I don’t have the space to display them. I also have a perverse fascination for early postcards from the sideshow era. Although I do not believe in supernatural powers, I generally enjoy hearing about them as well as all the strange beliefs surrounding them.
More personal stuff can be found here at my Author’s Page.
35 Comments
December 13, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Hello! You left a comment on my blog – can I email you? My email details are on the ‘About’ on my blog… very interested in talking to you!
January 3, 2009 at 11:42 pm
I like to think I have an open mind about such things supernatural or strange, though the only real strangeness I’ve experienced firsthand has been of the completely mundane variety. I am fascinated by ghost stories and tales of supernatural beings, even write some fiction in that vein. I once had a conversation with a biological scientist I worked with several years ago involving his experiences all his life with spirits. He was as logical and ‘normal’ a person you could imagine, yet had experienced unexplainable things. This leads me to lean more toward the believer end of the spectrum, though if a scientific explanation for such events were presented, I wouldn’t dismiss either as impossible. I feel there are things we don’t understand; and among them are things we aren’t meant to understand. Which is which? Beats me…
January 3, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Thanks for the heads up, Bruce. And for the informative alphainventions.com post. Will read up on this asap – have to finish a grant application first. Oh, the joys of academia!
Kind regards,
Tom
January 4, 2009 at 11:11 am
Thank you for alerting me to your book: I’d be very happy to purchase it when it comes out in Australia!
I’m very interested in how people can believe the things they do, and it seems like SuperSense covers this exact topic in a lot of detail.
I hope everything goes well.
Cheers,
Jack
January 4, 2009 at 8:02 pm
your blog looks great! I will henceforth be a reader. =) Thanks for shouting out to our piece on Ari on the Daily!
-Carrie
January 14, 2009 at 6:13 am
Stimulating site Bruce. I am certain it will generate plenty of interest.
Maureen
January 14, 2009 at 9:56 am
Really interesting blog Bruce.
I consider myself toward the believing end of open minded, having never ‘experienced’ anything other than the ‘Parking Angel’ to satisfy my need of proof.
Working on a stroke unit has enabled me to witness first hand effects of brain damage on personality, inhibition and cognative function. It is a fascinating field.
Last night a very poorly elderly patient of mine became very agitated and upset, she has difficulty in communicating though her cognative functions are still essentially in tact. At one point she was clearly having a conversation with someone, when I was the only other person in the room.
I asked her if she could see some one and she indicated that it was her Father. To cut a long story short, she indicated that his presence was not frightening, (she had been a Daddy’s girl) but she became upset and said she wasn’t ready to go.
This followed a night of her pulling off her blankets (even though she was cold), slapping herself and sucessfully batteling sleep.
Often sick patients can be seen looking upwards towards the corner of their vision for a few hours or days before they die, and most staff believe that ’someone comes to take them’. I have witnessed the grumpiest of grumpy old men ’see’ these ‘visions’ and spend the last two hours of his life with the biggest smile on his face.
Are these patients hallucinating as the brain closes down? I don’t know, but it much more reasuring for all of us to believe the alternative.
January 16, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Wow! How did such a smart guy run into my blog?…lol. My father went to MIT. I once was going to move to the UK, but it didn’t work out.
P.S. supernatural things scare me! =(
http://www.singleinatlanta.wordpress.com
January 17, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Hmmm…somehow I landed here while checking out alphainventions.com after they appeared as a link on my blog.
Interesting “about” you have. I must confess, I am a believer. I know what I have seen. Then again maybe I am simply crazy. :O
I’ll be back to read your words.
January 18, 2009 at 11:23 am
Thanks for the comment, Bruce. I’ll definitely be dropping by here regularly. Excellent blog. Looking forward to reading more when I have time.
January 18, 2009 at 9:26 pm
great blog! well written and concise post! i will be back for more great reads…
January 19, 2009 at 5:37 am
Ah Bruce, why did you have to go and bump me off AI, now I have been wasting my time trying to return the compliment (to no avail). Oh well, never mind.
January 23, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Hi Bruce, I have found another clip showing the Royal Guard clipping the tourist behind the ear. Fingers crossed they keep it up long enough for you to view it (oh, before the Queen gets it removed again!).
http://frigginloon.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/royal-guardsman-attacks-mimicking-tourist/
January 24, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Hi Bruce,
Thanks for all of the great posts and for adding me to your blogroll. It’s greatly appreciated (and I will be happy to return the favour!) I have a friend who shares your Hammer fascination and also collects the posters. He too doesn’t have space to hang them all. I caught the bug and have a handful of movie posters but only one Hammer; “The Gorgon.” It’s a great piece.
Thanks again, Ram
February 23, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Hi Bruce. I cruised along after reading your comments in a discussion at Condron.us. Interesting to see educated people thriving on the blog scene as well. Australian release for your book?
W
Zephyr — a superhero webcomic in prose
wereviking.wordpress.com
February 24, 2009 at 5:44 pm
hi bruce, came here by way of http://tothewire.wordpress.com.
i’m enjoying your blog. i’m curious about all things supernatural and like to debunk them but am fascinated by them anyway and delight in reading about the subject. anything on crop circles? england seems to have the best manifestations. how about spontaneous human combustion? that is a real phenomena…
February 24, 2009 at 7:00 pm
thanks!
you don’t believe in supernatural abilities? clairvoyance, telekinesis, etc?? in the realm of parapsychology i do believe some individuals are able to harness their psychic energies and are able to manifest them in different ways- consciously or subconsciously, e.g ouija board planchettes and poltergeist activity, debunking ghosts but evidencing psychic energy.
April 2, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Hi Bruce! I’m Mary from Jon and Mary in the Morning Radio show in Wisconsin. We interview you this coming Monday morning and I can’t wait! I started SuperSense last night. This kind of information is fascinating to me. Of course, growing up in an Irish Catholic household where there was a new superstition spewing from my Grandma McCarthy’s lips every day, may have had an impact on my thoughts. (Yes, I fly with my rosary in my purse and I wear a Miraculous Medal. Having said that, I deeply believe in the power of prayer.) I’ll keep reading and we’ll talk to you Monday morning, Bruce!
April 14, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Dear Richard,
That was thrown in for a bit of humor… I didn’t realize that someone had actually worked it out! But you do agree there has been more than one shroud – no? And that there was an medieval industry in relics in much the same way that James Randi recounts in the book. Thanks for the comment.
Best
Bruce
April 14, 2009 at 8:35 pm
I definitely with you on Chomsky/deep structure vs. Skinner. But I think
skeptics err when making replicability the touchstone of scientific
inquiry. I think there are phenomena worthy of scientific investigation
which cannot be replicated under laboratory conditions. William James,
whom you cite favorably on other matters at several points in the book,
certainly was a “believer” in the possibility of psychic phenomena.
There
certainly was a profit motive in the medieval relic trade. But with
respect to the Shroud, I’ll get back to you.
Thanks for your response.
Richard
May 5, 2009 at 7:34 pm
I would love to chat with you about any upcoming US tours. I could not find your email anywhere though.
Best,
Whitney
May 18, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Enjoyed your MCing at the Conspiracy Theories lecture at the Bristol Festival of Ideas. Sorry we didn’t manage to get tickets for your session.
June 6, 2009 at 6:20 pm
On page 26 in “SuperSense” you say that the limbic system is “Sometimes referred to as the ‘reptilian’ part of the brain”. Perhaps others have made the same mistake, but Paul MacLean, originator of the concept, on page 16 in his book “The Triune Brain in Evolution” refers to the limbic system as the “Paleomammalian Brain”. “Reptilian Brain” refers to the brain stem.
June 6, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Ooops Alvin. I stand corrected. The book is ambitious in its scope. I’ll need to be more careful in future but I hope the general story is reasonably accurate.
August 9, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Hi Bruce, your book was recommended to me by my PhD supervisor, what an excellent choice! It lead me onto about a dozen other books in a similar vein, including Stuart Vyse’s ‘Believing in Magic’ and Dean Hamer’s ‘The God Gene’, basically your book has helped me figured out my hypothesis! So if I get through my viva, it will be partly due to your book and where it lead me! Thanks! You the man!
August 9, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Thank you Fiona-Jane… that was such a kind thing to write.
August 11, 2009 at 1:37 am
I enjoyed your book. I’m a pathologist and I sometimes wonder about where the “soul” is when I hold a brain in my hands. I think the theory of emergence may have an answer.
Anyway, I didn’t see a link to this article from the Sunday NYT on Capgras syndrome so I didn’t know if you had seen it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/health/research/09brain.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=when%20loved%20ones%20seem%20imposters&st=cse
August 11, 2009 at 5:50 am
Thanks Paul… No I hadn’t seen the article – thanks for the link.
August 19, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Bruce,
A statement you made at the end of Supersense gave me an idea for a new book you could write; or maybe I’ll write it. It’s called “Playing God with Information”.
See, at the end of the book you talked about how you met the current residents at the cardigan killer house. You decided to TAKE information from them, but not GIVE them any information in return. This is critical information that you researched through “great pains” as you say. This is information that you were sharing with the entire world who would buy your book. The residents were the only people NOT to know. That’s crazy, because they were the ones who needed the information the most.
This is a classic example of making your decision first, then justifying it afterwards. Do you know why you made that decision? You said it was to protect them. Ahhh, no. It was to protect you. It was to let sleeping dogs lie. It was to not open a can of worms. It was to not inconvenience yourself.
It’s ok. People do this all the time. We all play God with information. The premise of the book can answer the simple question: Why do we all want the full information from others, while we withhold the full information from others?
Lack of information NEVER protects listener. It only serves the person holding back the information.
I’m a fan of full disclosure to an extreme and to let the chips fall where they may.
Anyway, I’m not trying to give you a hard time. I liked your book. Its just that the ending shows a clear reason why we have a Supersense; because people hold back the truth and we’re left having to figure it out another way. The residents feel the ghosts, but it would be a helluva lot easier if you just told them what happened there like you told the rest of the world.
August 19, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Are you saying that we should always tell everyone any information that may have some bearing on their situation? Surely not. Also are you also saying that the residents probably experienced ghosts?
But yes, I did wonder if I should include the epilogue and mention that the house still existed. I figured that if the rest of the world knew then the book would have done pretty well and I could justify my disclosure. If the book did not do well then it would generally not be known. At the time, it just seemed wrong to tell them.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
Best
Bruce
August 20, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Lack of information NEVER protects the listener? OK, then, my alcoholic friend, you should know that the pub around the corner is having a 2 for 1 special right now. Matt, you are assuming that people are perfectly rational and will use information to their best interests. However, the main point of Bruce’s book is that people are not and never will be fully rational. He did not tell the people living there of the history of the house because he, quite rightly, recognised they might not react fully rationally to this information, just like the alcoholic from my example. I would have done exactly the same thing that Bruce did. Doing otherwise would have been irresponsible.
August 28, 2009 at 8:47 am
Bruce? Bruce from Dundee Uni circa 1981/82? Party Bruce, coolest dude in town?
Would you believe I began reading your book today? It’s a fascinating topic especially the ‘humans as pattern recognition machines’ aspect in terms of explaining curious perceptual phenomena (I did Psychology at Dundee too). Excellent work.
Click my Website link for some photos of that era – does the name Plastic Flies conjour memories?
Apologies if I have confused you with another Bruce Hood. I’ll get my coat.
September 23, 2009 at 1:50 pm
bruce
im enjoying your book but i have a question.
why can’t intelligent design be evolution, after all evolution would be the intelligent way to design any being?
regards
gary
September 23, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Well I think this is really Dawkins’ point about the difference between a system that has a goal in mind (designed) as to one where there is no goal (chance variation and selection by competition), where complexity simply emerges as a consequence.
Does that help?
October 30, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Bruce – many thanks for a very interesting and entertaining presentation this evening, and for being so accessible afterwards – fascinating, and now looking forward to reading the book.