{"id":1208,"date":"2010-10-25T15:53:01","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T14:53:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/?page_id=1208"},"modified":"2025-09-18T14:04:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T13:04:22","slug":"about-tom","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/about-tom\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"For<\/a>
For argument’s sake: evidence that reason can change minds (2015)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n
\"Control<\/a>
Control Your Dreams (2011)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Explore<\/a>
Explore Your Blind Spot (2011)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The Narrative Escape (2010)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"Mind<\/a>
Mind Hacks: Tips & Tricks for Using Your Brain (2004)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

I am currently writing on reasoning and persuasion at tomstafford.substack.com<\/a>. This follows up on a theme I wrote about in an ebook ‘For argument’s sake: evidence that reason can change minds<\/a>‘.<\/p>\n

I used to write a regular column about the brain and everyday life for BBC Future<\/a> and critically review neuroscience and psychology stories in the news for The Conversation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I co-authored the best-selling Mind Hacks: Tips and Tricks for using your brain<\/a> (2004), which led to the creation of an award-winning website mindhacks.com<\/a>. I still post here irregularly, but 99.9% of the posts are due to Vaughan Bell (see below for links to some of these irregular posts).<\/p>\n

I also wrote the essays which intersperse the Rough Guide Book of Brain Training<\/a> (2010). You can read about this Rough Guide on mindhacks.com<\/a>, and there is one of the cut chapters here<\/a><\/p>\n

I have written an ebook on psychology, morality and the nature of stories: The Narrative Escape<\/a> (2010). I have published two free ebooks Explore Your Blind Spot<\/a> and Control Your Dreams<\/a> (both december 2011).<\/p>\n

I have written for newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian<\/a>, and New Scientist<\/a>, as well as an article on confabulation and creativity for Prospect magazine: Tall Stories<\/a>; this on creativity and games<\/a> for Rattle<\/a>; and one on small world theory and social networks for Now Then magazine (available here<\/a>). I come top of a google search for “psychology + coffee” because of this article Psychology in the Coffee Shop<\/a>, published in the Psychologist magazine.<\/p>\n

I wrote a chapter for Christian Nold’s Emotional Cartography<\/a>, and I gave a talk at the book launch which started ‘There is a saying that those who want to enjoy laws and sausages should not find out how they are made. I think the same is true about facts’<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Academic outputs are here tomstafford.github.io<\/a><\/p>\n

Sometimes I write longer blog posts. For mindhacks.com these include: Little men and their discontinuities<\/a>, A surprising romantic reappearance<\/a>, Hack #102 : Alter Input With Expectations<\/a>, Hack 101: Make Eyes (or Anything) in Pictures Follow You Round The Room<\/a>, Hack #103: See more with your eyes closed<\/a>, Hack #104: Change the length of your arms!<\/a>, Cultivated Perception<\/a>, The Social Yawn<\/a>, Why email is addictive (and what to do about it)<\/a>, Test Your Synaesthesia<\/a>. I also wrote a lot of posts about psychology and advertising<\/a> at one point.<\/p>\n

For this blog these include Me in a dream<\/a>, Rock Climbing Hacks<\/a>, Cognitive Dissonance Reduction <\/a>, How do psychologists think? <\/a> and these three posts on learning: Learning makes itself invisible<\/a>, Learning Should be Fun<\/a>, The Straight Dope on Learning Styles<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am currently writing on reasoning and persuasion at tomstafford.substack.com. This follows up on a theme I wrote about in an ebook ‘For argument’s sake: evidence that reason can change minds‘. I used to write a regular column about the brain and everyday life for BBC Future and critically review neuroscience and psychology stories in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1208","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P5KQtW-ju","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1208"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1208"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6547,"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1208\/revisions\/6547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}