I just couldn’t resist the title. I’ve always thought of O’Reilly as one of the more serious computer book publishers, so this book title made me curious. The previous books in the ‘Hacks’ series have included titles such as Google Hacks, Windows XP Hacks and Amazon Hacks. These books generally provide collections of hints and tips for using some particular piece of software or technology. Amazon Hacks, for example, lists one hundred techniques and code snippets to help you buy and sell on Amazon and make effective use of Amazon’s web services.

So what on earth could Mind Hacks be all about? As far as I am aware, the human mind doesn’t come with an SDK, an API, a virtual machine or web service protocols. So how can you hack it?

The answer, it would appear, is: with some difficulty.

As you might have guessed, the hacks in this book aren’t really comparable with those in other titles in this series. There aren’t any secret tweaks to make people run faster or pay you ten percent on all purchases. Nonetheless, the authors make a valiant attempt to justify the ‘hacking’ metaphor:

“The brain, like all hidden systems, is prime territory for curious hacker…” they say, “Some of the hacks in this collection document the neat tricks the brain uses to get the job done.”

Even so, I remain unconvinced. If you expect this book to provide you with the psychological equivalent of a software toolkit – little tricks to make your or someone else’s mind do the things you want it to – then you will be disappointed. This book is, in fact, a lightweight guide to some contemporary ideas about the human brain and behaviour. Its hundred ‘hacks’ are no more than easily digestible essays about brain structure, perception and psychology. The hacks are divided into themed sections such as Inside the Brain, Seeing, Reasoning and Remembering. You could, if you wished, read the entire book from start to finish. But really this is a book for dipping into. Want to know how people perceive depth in two dimensional pictures? Then flip to Hack #20, ‘Fool Yourself Into Seeing 3D’. Want to know how the mind manages to make sense of long sentences (and how it can be fooled while doing so)? You’ll need Hack #51, ‘Stop Memory-Buffer Overrun While Reading’. And so on…

The two principal authors of this book, Tom Stafford and Matt Webb, are, respectively, an academic psychologist (otherwise known as a ‘computational cognitive neuroscientist’ apparently) and an engineer/designer. A long list of other contributors includes numerous authors and academics in various disciplines. Given the mix of writers involved in its creation, it is perhaps not surprising that Mind Hacks lacks any real sense of cohesion. It’s a pleasant enough read, ideal for browsing on the train or bus. But its hopping and skipping from one subject to another can be irritating. Fortunately, there are numerous footnotes giving references to more detailed books on the subjects under discussion, should your appetite be sufficiently whetted to make you want something more substantial.

You can buy this book from Computer Manuals (UK).

Huw Collingbourne

June 2005