ONTENTS1. PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENTIFIC FIELD OF RESEARCH1.1 Basic processes 1.2 Psychobiology1.3 Social Psychology1.4 Intelligence1.5 Personality1.6 Psychopathology1.8 Psychological Assessment1.9 Computer-based testing and Traffic Safety1.10 Child and Educational Psychology 1.11 Work and Organizational Psychology1.12 Methodology 1.13 History of Psychology 2. PSYCHOLOGY AS A KNOWLEDGE-BASED FIELD OF EXPERTISE 3. TRAINING IN PSYCHOLOGY4. JOURNALS AND SOCIETIES5. FINAL COMMENTSREFERENCES The beginnings of modern Spanish psychology are to be found in the final decade of the 19th Century (Carpintero, 1982). The leading figures until the 1930s were S. Ramon-y-Cajal, L. Simarro and G.R. Lafora in Madrid and R. Turro and E. Mira in Barcelona. They maintained regular contacts with leading Psychology research groups in France, Germany, Switzerland and U.K. As a consequence two International Congresses on Psychotechnics took place in Barcelona (1921, 1930).
The Civil War impaired the normal development of psychology in Spain (Carpintero, 1984). A massive emigration of scholars, scientists and practitioners to Latin-American countries followed the end of the war in 1939. The return of psychology as a scientific discipline was rather slow. Jose Germain was the leading figure of the main active group integrated by M. Yela, J.L. Pinillos, M. Siguan and F. Secadas.
Yela introduced in Spain factor analysis and multivariate experimental approaches to the study of intelligence, verbal behavior, personnel selection and psychological testing. Pinillosïs initial fields of interest were personality testing and social attitudes, trying to fill the gap between humanistic and experimental approaches in Psychology. His Principles of Psychology (1975) became the most influential textbook. Siguan worked in industrial psychology focusing on human relations and supervisory training in interpersonal skills and leadership. He also approached migratory movements from a psychological perspective and the study of bilingualism. Secadas was involved in research projects concerning mental aptitudes and developmental assessment.
In 1980 a long-term curriculum of five years in Psychology was created by law. Enrolments rose very rapidly and Faculties of Psychology were created in several Universities. Thousands of students came in pursuit of a pre-doctoral degree in Psychology ("Licenciatura en Psicologia"). Research teams and lecturing posts grew under this new climate.
A new generation of professors favored a new upsurge of research and theory. They reviewed the basis of the core program in Psychology and designed the new lines of professional action and practice.
In the last thirty years Spanish psychologists have been contributing to Psychology in many basic and applied areas, both from a theoretical as well as empirical perspectives. Only the most well established research programs developed in the last three decades will be considered here. Since it is not possible to quote directly the most relevant articles of each important author, an extended bibliography of 1000 references will be sent on request.
Learning became a central topic in research from the early sixties. While classical conditioning seemed to dominate the experimental scene in the 1960ïs, operant theory became very influential in the 1970ïs. Pavlovian conditioning (Garcí
Perceptual and attentional processes have been approached, sometimes in isolation and sometimes related to other psychological processes. Under the influence of the Gestalt framework, Yela (1952) carried out studies on phenomenal causation. The relevance of stimuli dimensions and structure (Fernandez-Trespalacios et alii, 1988), the effect of stimuli configuration on discrimination tasks (Luna et alii, 1985) have been investigated. Quite often these authors have developed complex and specific computational procedures (Jañez, 1983) to deal effectively with causality in attentional and perceptual processes ( Arnau et alii, 1992). For instance, the empirical characteristics of visual channels meet the requirements of a kind of wavelet analysis (Garcí Memory in its various facets has been explored by several groups: Semantic memory (Pitarque et alii, 1987; Recarte 1985), facilitation with pictures and words (Bajo, 1988), episodic memory (Alonso-Quecuty & de Vega, 1991), eyewitness accounts (Mira & Diges, 1986), conceptual anaphors (Carreiras & Gernsbacher, 1992), concreteness, distinctiveness and recognition (Ruiz Vargas, 1991), words and images as primes in naming tasks (Mayor et alii, 1988), long-term retention and meaning of words (Gotor et alii, 1987).
The works that opened up the new area of cognitive psychology were those of Delclaux & Seoane (1982) and Vega (1984). The renewal of interest in the meaning of consciousness for life and its significance for obtaining an adequate view of many psychological issues has been stressed by Pinillos (1983). Consciousness in human conditioning and in non-verbal learning has been studied by Huertas (1992). Largely based on previous studies of communication among autistic subjects, Riviere (1991) has developed a coherent theory of the human subject as an "object with a mind" from a perspective both mentalistic and objectivist in accordance with a computational theory of mind.
Abstract thinking and reasoning, logical processes (Del Val, 1977), heuristics and categorization, conceptualization and judgment (Gonzalez-Marques, 1991), multi-level processing in representations, decision making and problem solving (Martinez-Arias, 1991), syllogistic operations (Garcia-Madruga, 1983) have attracted the attention of various groups of researchers.
Psycholinguistic processes from the perspective of modularity, trying to analyze the computational structure supporting them and to determine the various levels of processing in sentence production (Garcia-Albea et alii, 1989), in sentence comprehension (Belinchon et alii, 1992) have been studied. Inner active processes in reading, metaphorical expressions as a crossroads for language and thought (Mayor 1985) and the acquisition of linguistic categories have been studied by a large number of researchers interested in applied cognitive approaches (Valle, 1991).
Since about 60% of the Spanish population live in a territory where a second language is used in their everyday life and has an official character, the issue of bilingualism attracted the attention of psychologists (Siguan, 1984). Lloyd et alii, (1992) have been working on referential communication both in monolingual and bilingual children.
Emotion has been studied not only from psychophysiological but also from psychosocial perspectives. Based on several empirical studies on emotional expression and recognition (Iglesias et alii, 1989), a contextual theory and a taxonomy of emotional situations have been proposed by Fernandez-Dols et alii (1991) and Fernandez-Dols & Jimenez (1986).
Psychobiological studies in Spain have been developed in close relation to medical school programs in neurosciences. The existence, in mammals, of a sexually dimorphic system (the Vomeronasal System) involved in the control of sexual behavior has been established by Guillamon & Segovia (1993).
Rapid discrimination of rewarding nutrients (Puerto et alii, 1976) and neural mechanisms controling feeding behavior have been studied by Puerto and associates during two decades. Hormones and competitive human behavior and the pharmarcology of aggression have been studied by Salvador et alii (1987).
In the field of human psychophysiology, a series of studies regarding the cardiac response in humans to auditory stimulation have been carried out by Vila et alii (1992). They have indicated the relationship between stimulus intensity and parametric level of sensorial modality with the sympathetic and parasympathetic physiological components as well as their psychological (motivational and cognitive) correlates. In a similar field, Martinez-Selva et alii (1987) are working on individual differences in electrodermal orienting responses.
Intracraneal self-stimulation and sleep deprivation (paradoxical dream) and their influence on learning and memory have been explored by Segura Torres et alii (1988).
In the field of neuropsychology, Junqué et alii (1990) are working on the role of the fronto-basal system in inhibition, incidental memory and utilization of knowledge; functional assymetries of brain are being studied by Nieto et alii (1990), specifically, language capabilities of right hemisphere.
The study of animal behavior in its natural context has become an important topic among psychobiologists. We must emphasize the primatology studies conducted by Sabater-Pi (1974) specially concerning culture and manufacture of tools in primate. Pelaez (1982) has been working on control mechanisms of primatesï social systems.
Several Symposia and Conferences have been organized, four Journals are devoted to this field and many theoretical contributions have been made (Blanco, 1980; Morales, 1981; Munne, 1986; Torregrosa, 1974).
During the last decade cross-regional stereotypes and intergroup perceptions have been explored (Sangrador, 1981; Ros et alii, 1987); research on social representation concerning drug-addicts and AIDS or HIV sufferers (Echebarria & Paez, 1989) must be mentioned.
Intermember perceptions and dispositions in experimental groups (Huici, 1980) and in minority groups have been the subject of research (Mugni & Perez, 1991).
Several facets in the relationshps between law and Psychology have been explored. Visual testimony in the court, jury decisions, and delinquency problems (Jimenez-Burillo & Clemente, 1986) have been researched.
The most important research program on environmental psychology concerns basic topics such as visual perception of landscape, cognitive representation of space (Aragonés & Arredondo, 1985), the affective quality attributed to places (Corraliza & Aragones, 1988), as well as other applied studies such as environmental quality of urban spaces, residential satisfaction (Amerigo & Aragones, 1990), educational facilities in schools (Pol & Morales, 1986).
JOSÉ RAMÓN CORREAS GONZALEZ
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