Nicholas J. Mackintosh, expert on comparative psychology, receives the Gold Medal of the University of Barcelona

Renowned experimental psychologists and neuroscientists have been invited to the ceremony. They coincided with Professor Mackintosh throughout their careers and they had a personal relationship with him: John M. Pearce, from Cardiff University; Anthony Dickinson, from the University of Cambridge; Ian P. L. McLaren, from the University of Exeter, and Kate Plaisted-Grant, from the University of Cambridge. 

Mackintoshʼs legacy

Nicholas J. Mackintosh (9 July 1935 - 8 February 2015) was emeritus professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) and member of the Royal Society since 1987. His contribution to experimental psychology can be summarized in three main points:

Firstly, in the field of conditioning and associative learning, Mackintosh defined conditioning as the process that exposes an animal to certain relations among events. The animal makes a representation of these events and establishes relations among them, so its behaviour changes in a quite predictable way.

Secondly, Mackintosh contributed to discover the psychological mechanism of intelligence. His contribution to the measurement of animal and human intelligence changed how the nature of cognition, learning and intellect are conceived. Mackintosh considered that comparative psychology has to study what abilities or cognitive processes differ animal species, instead of trying to order them on a single intelligence scale (which is the traditional proposal).

Finally, for the last years of his life, he carried out a very important task as consultant of the British Government and the Royal Society. He led the module 4 —Neuroscience and law— of the project Brain Waves. The project aims at understanding the effects that advances in neurosciences may have in the society. To be exact, the module Neuroscience and Law analyses the studies that may influence the decisions made at courts of justice and tries to understand how brain dysfunction may cause illegal practices.

Professor Mackintosh and the University of Barcelona

Mackintoshʼs relationship with the University of Barcelona began in the 1980s and continued until his death. He worked together with the Consolidated Research Group on Learning and Cognition: A comparative Approach, coordinated by Dr Díez Chamizo. Comparative psychology studies similarities and differences in behavioural organization between humans and animals by paying particular attention to how men and women solve spatial questions. Joint research studies proved that true spatial learning is not different from simple associative learning as it was defended by researchers OʼKeefe and Nadel (1978) in the popular book The hippocampus as a cognitive map.

Recognition of Mackintoshʼs career

Mackintoshʼs vast legacy is gathered in eight books, one hundred and fifty articles published in prestigious journals, and forty book chapters. It is interesting to highlight here: the article “Selective attention in animal discrimination learning”, considered the text that revolved the psychology of animal cognition; the book The psychology of animal learning, the most complete revision of animal learning, and the work IQ and human intelligence, which connects the studies on intelligence quotient testing with cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, and served to recognise and face problems related to low achievement at multi-ethnic schools in the United Kingdom.

The University of Barcelona wanted to grant him an honorary doctorate but his sudden death did not permit it. However, he received the Biological Medal and the Presidentʼs Award of the British Psychological Society in 1984 and 1986, respectively, for his outstanding research studies. Moreover, in 2004, the Pavlovian Society of North America gave him a very prestigious prize, the Horsley Gantt Medal. He was visiting lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California Berkeley, the University of Hawaii, the University of New South Wales and Yale University.

Recipients of the Gold Medal of the University of Barcelona

The last Gold Medal conferred by the University of Barcelona was given to geologist Carmina Virgili in 2011. Previously, in 2008, the award was given to Jordi Sabater Pi, primatologist and ethologist, and Baltasar Porcel, writer, journalist and literary critic. Moisès Broggi, Catalan prestigious doctor and pacifist, and Roser Rahola, president of the publishing House Vicens Vives, received the Gold Medal in 2008.