Bruce Hood to be Royal Institution Christmas Lecturer 2011

 

The world that we see about us is largely make-believe and a product of the brain’s remarkable ability to construct illusions that allow us to make sense of our surroundings, according to the scientist who will give Britain’s most prestigious public science lectures.
 

Bruce Hood, who will give this year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, will explore the limits of the mind with a series of illusions that show the fallibility of our senses and memories.
 

The psychologist, who is director of the Bristol Cognitive Development Centre, will induce false memories in members of the audience and use pickpockets to demonstrate how easily we are distracted. His goal is to explain how everybody’s brain creates its own version of reality and how we have less control over our own decisions and perceptions than we like to think.
 

“One thing I guarantee is that I will leave the audience wondering if they can ever trust their brain again,” Professor Hood told The Times.
 

“Much of what you experience is created by your brain and isn’t really out there. You are living in a simulated matrix of your own making. We don’t have any direct contact with reality: everything has to be interpreted.”
 

Even our experiences of free will and individuality are to an extent the product of useful mental illusions, which disguise the influence of our past experiences and other people around us. “The idea that we’re in control of what we’re doing and making decisions that are separate from other people can be challenged,” he said.
 

The Royal Institution’s Christmas Lectures were started in 1825 by Michael Faraday and have been held every year except during the Second World War. Professor Hood’s theme for the three lectures, which will be seen on BBC Four, is Meet Your Brain.