He published hundreds of papers as well as a book about the experience of being a scientist, Amorous Turkeys and Addicted Ducklings: A Search for the Causes of Social Attachment.
Supported by the Veterans Administration, which identified his aptitude for physics, mathematics, and painting, Hoffman later attended art school, studying under Moses Sawyer.
After observing children in the nursery school where he was employed, he turned to psychology (not, ironically, one of the domains identified by the VA's aptitude testing) and ultimately earned his Ph.D. Hoffman continued to paint.
His many papers on the reflex and its modification laid the groundwork for the widespread use of prepulse inhibition today in studies of schizophrenia and other disorders.
In collaboration with his wife Alice M. Hoffman he wrote Archives of Memory: A Soldier Recalls World War II and The Cruikshank Chronicles: Anecdotes, Stories, and Memoirs of a New Deal Liberal.