Dr Tom Stafford BSc, PhD
Address
The University of Sheffield
Sheffield S10 2TP, UK
Tel: (+44) 0114 222 6620
Fax: (+44) 0114 276 6515
Email: t.stafford@sheffield.ac.uk
Room: 2-27
Qualifications
BSc, PhD (Sheffield)
Teaching and administrative duties
I am module organiser for module 241: Cognitive Psychology. I also teach on module 304. In addition I am PR & Media liaison, Departmental web co-ordinator, outreach liaison and duals tutor.
Research Interests
Action selection
I am interested in the selection of actions.
My PhD showed that the neural circuits which resolve the biological problem of 'action selection' have relevance to human cognitive behaviour. Using our model of the vertebrate basal ganglia we were able to make predictions about human reaction time performance in a test of response selection (the Stroop task).
Pieron's Law
We have also shown that a ubiquitous psychophysical function which relates stimulus intensity to reaction time - Pieron's Law - can arise from the biology of using neural activations which rise to threshold for selection. Further work is investigating how the biological constraints on action selection affect the psychophysics of human choice behaviour.
Research methods and collaborations
My research methods consist mainly of neural network modelling and cognitive psychology experiments, but these are undertaken in the wider context of collaboration with those doing brain imaging, robotics investigations, computational neuroscience and conducting basic biological research with animals.
Decision behaviour and beliefs
Another strand of research involves looking at cognitive and social influences on decision behaviour, and on expressed beliefs. Connections between the two stands of work include the use of neural network modelling to inform learning theory perspectives on behavioural change, and of how informational constraints can lead to behavioural biases.
Grants
University of Sheffield Social Sciences Devolved Fund Grant: "The cognitive psychology of decision processing: How does intensity and size of choice-set affect response selection?" (June – Dec 2005). £2986
Activities and Distinctions
- Associate editor of The Psychologist magazine, to which I regularly contribute reviews and articles.
- I am an occasional reviewer for the journals Neural Networks & Connection Science. I have reviewed grant applications for the ESRC and for a special issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society on Modelling Natural Action Selection.
- I am the co-author of the popular science book Mind Hacks - Tips and Tricks for Using Your Brain (November 2004), a collection of do-it-at-home demonstrations which illustrate how your brain works. Sales so far exceed 30,000 worldwide. It has been translated in 7 languages and reviewed by, amongst others, the Guardian and New Scientist.
- The associated website, www.mindhacks.com, is a group weblog focussed around the material in the book and psychology research news. It won a 2005 Scientific American Science & Technology Web Awards and is read daily by thousands of internet users.
- I write a column for the BBC's Focus magazine. Each month I present and then explain a phenomenon from cognitive psychology.
- I have given talks at science communication events such as the Cardiff Science Festival (July 2005) and Sheffield’s Cafe Scientifique (March 2006).
Key Publication
STAFFORD, T. & GURNEY, K. N. (2004).
The Role of Response Mechanisms in Determining Reaction Time Performance: Pieron's Law Revisited.
Psychonomic Bulletin Review, 11(6), 975-987.