Donald David Hoffman

Background

Donald Hoffman was born on December 29, 1955, in San Antonio, Texas, United States. He is a son of David Pollock and Loretta Virginia (Shoemaker) Hoffman.

Education

Donald Hoffman studied at the University of California, Los Angeles where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1978. He also attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received a Doctor of Philosophy in 1983.

Career

Donald Hoffman started his career as a member of the technical staff and project engineer at Hughes Aircraft Company in 1978. In 1983 he started to work as a research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology but soon he left this post and became an assistant professor of Cognitive Science, and of Information and Computer Science at the University of California. In 1986 he was promoted to an associate professor and in 1990 he became a full professor. He still works at the University of California and holds a post of professor of Philosophy and Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science. He also worked as a visiting professor at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Germany. Hoffman has co-authored two technical books: Observer Mechanics: A Formal Theory of Perception (1989) and Automotive Lighting and Human Vision (2005). His book Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See was published in 1998. One of his more recent books was published in 2019. He also was a speaker at the TED Talk.

Achievements

• Donald Hoffman is an American cognitive psychologist, writer and educator who is famous for his book Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See. He is an author of Multimodal user interface theory. He studies consciousness, visual perception and evolutionary psychology using mathematical models and psychophysical experiments.
  
  Hoffman received the Troland Research Award in 1994 and the Distinguished Scientific Award in 1989. In 2013 he received the Rustum Roy Spirit Award.
  
  

Works

More photos

• book

  • Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See

    (A unique, illustrated popular study reveals the way the h...)

    1998
  • Observer Mechanics: A Formal Theory of Perception

    (This book is a valuable resource for physicists, psychoph...)

    1989
  • Automotive Lighting and Human Vision

    (The safety of vehicle traffic depends on how well automot...)

    2007
  • The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes

    (The real-world implications for this discovery are huge. ...)

    2019

Membership

Donald Hoffman is a member of the American Psychological Society and Association for Science Study of Consciousness.

Interests

• running, swimming, racket sports, ice skating

Connections

Donald Hoffman married Rebecca Holman in 1977. The marriage produced a daughter. Donald and Rebecca divorced in 1985. In 1986, Hoffman married Geralyn Souza.

Father:

David Pollock Hoffman

Mother:

Loretta Virginia Hoffman

ex-wife:

Rebecca Holman

Wife:

Geralyn Souza

Daughter:

Melissa Louise Nunez