One of Germain's students is Mariano Yela (Madrid, 1921). As already mentioned, he received postgraduate training in the U.S.A (especially in Chicago, with Thurstone and Rogers) and for many years was part-time visiting professor in the department of psychology at the University of Louvain (Belgium). He carried out important works promoting the development of mathematical psychology (mainly in the field of factor analysis) as well as studying intelligence and verbal behavior.
His colleague, José Luis Pinillos (Bilbao. 1919), another very influential person in Spanish culture at present, broadened his training in Germany (Rothacker Behn), and later in England with Eysenck. His works on social psychology, as well as on central problems in the epistemology of psychology, are well known and have exerted great influence. He was, to a certain extent, a promoter of behaviour modification techniques and theories, and also of the important meaning of consciousness for the psychology of human processes, and has in recent times stressed the historical dimentions of human mind. His book Principios de Psicologia (1976) has surely been the handbook of general psychology most circulated among Spanish students. He provides in it a psychological vision, founded on biological-evolutive concepts, and on the emergence of the consciousness, by means of which he tries to sidestep any kind of reductionism.
In Catalonia, Miguel Siguán (Barcelona, 1918) founded the postgraduate school of psychology we have already referred to (Univ. Barcelona 1964), and has worked on problems of social psychology - migration, industrial relations and language psychology -. From his chair he has considerably restrengthened our links with European psychology, especially with the Geneva school and other French-speaking working groups.
Together with these names, which we consider representative of a larger group, there are many more. However, it is interesting to see that, the majority of contemporary researchers have been students of the above-mentioned professors. It is then possible to trace the unfolding of Spanish psychology as the evolution and maturing of the Germain group, that has taken place through collaborative work and a master-pupil relationship network, in a sort of process that lends a certain unity to this reconstructed research tradition. Thus there is, despite a great variety of concepts and problems, a strong and coherent social unity in the background, not linked by criteria or theoretical dimensions, but by personal cooperation.
One of the links that stands out most clearly is the one relative to methodological questions. There is no doubt that the strong impression made by Yela, trained in the tradition of multivariated analysis, in Experimental and in General Psychology courses, has had an important and lasting effect. Interest in statistical issues has been promoted by J. Amón, A. Macia, J.M. Domenech, G. Prieto, V. Ponsoda, J. Chorro, M. Ato, M.D. Peris, M.D. Riba, and San-Martín.
Groups interested in the drafting of specific methodologies, construction and validation of instruments and the resolution of a great range of questions that imply the use of a certain technology (J. Arnau, M.T. Anguera, J.Muñiz, R. Martinez Arias) have also appeared. An interesting cooperation between university centres and professional centres for psycho-technical material production has been set up, as well as an ample dissemination of computer application in research among psychologists, with important developments in the field of artificial intelligence (L. Jañez, V. Sierra).
In our country, at present, however, psychobiology is concerned with a variety of problems, such as aggression, sexual differences, hormones and behavior. In very recent times, neuropsychology has also been promoted. In the last decades we have also seen a growing interest in ethology. Together with the internationally known figure of primathologist Sabater Pi, there are already other teams (in the Doñana Ecological Station and in university departments) that are very active in the field. There are also rising names in the field of human psycho-physiology. Together with some well known ones from our immediate past (J.M.R. Delgado, L.Barraquer-Bordas, D. Perez and S. Palafox), there are others that have created very active groups at our universities (A. Guillamon, V. Simón, M. Sánchez Turet, A. Puerto, J. Martínez Selva, I. Morgado and S. Segovia, among others). Their results are frequently published in specialized international journals. It is interesting to note that in Guillamón's opinion, Spanish psychobiology appears more centred in Neurosciences than in psychology as such.
In Spain, in the past ten years, as in all the Western world, the development of cognitive psychology and the subsequent transformation of the science has taken place. The study of attention-related problems (alertness, vigilance, sleep, etc. by P. Tudela, J. Bernia, C. Rechea and J. L. Vega among others); perception (J.L.F. Trespalacios, D. Luna and H. Boada); and language (J. Mayor, J.L. Miralles, M. Serra, E.G.Albea and J.D. Ramirez) have also been developed. At the same time, research on learning has also been carried out (V.D. Chamizo, P. Ferrandiz, E. Huertas and A. Maldonado).
In general, what Spanish researchers are interested in today is the study of cognitive processes from the paradigm of data processing (A. Riviere, M. Carretero, J. Palacios, J.G. Marques, M. de Vega, J. Delclaux and J. Seoane,), whose repercussions and applications have been explored for many years.
Cognitivism still shares part of its domain today with studies focusing on the functional analysis of behaviour. This has promoted an important subdivision of the theoretical analyses about behaviour, and at the same time has managed to constitute a body of technical applications, and even a technology, with application possibilities in behavioral intervention. R. Bayés made it possible to substantially incorporate Skinner's approaches, and authors such as J.A.Carrobles, F. Labrador, E.Garcia-Abascal, D.Avia, J. Bermudez and others have promoted the application of these principles to clinical and social intervention programs. The study of the assessment of behaviours and environments has been enormously developed thanks to the contributions of R. Fernández Ballesteros, F. Silva, M.Forn and J. Forteza. It has also been developed in specific environments, such as work and organizational psychology (J.M. Peiró, J.M. Prieto), health (J. Rodriguez Marin), sports (J. Cruz, F. Munné), and so on.
The multiplicity of themes and the volume of recent contributions to each field of applied psychology in Spain is, at present, a unique fhenomenon. Technology and research have grown together. It is a phenomenon of the vitality of Spanish psychology, which is not exempt from problems. In the academic world, large and isolated areas of research have been developed, within which the interactions of groups are very important. Other authors in this review have produced an overview in each area.
One cannot forget the importance of studies on the history of psychology, which have reinforced the continuity of current psychology with the national roots of the past (A. Caparrós, J.M. Gondra, F. Tortosa, E. Quiñones, E.P.Delgado and S.Rodriguez, among others).