‘Eramos enemigos ideológicos’ We were ideological enemies Cognitive psychology at the University of Buenos Aires Cognitive psychology, as the theoretical framework for studying mental processes and criticism of behaviorism Or as a continuation of behaviorism, adding mental processes to the causal chain of stimulus and response (Bruner, 1990). that developed in the 1950’s in the U.S., was only recently received at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). This institution is vital to the image of psychology in Argentina, an image that is mainly psychoanalytical. Within this particular academic context, cognitive psychology has been struggling for its acceptance and is very slowly becoming a little more popular. In an interview Dr. Carlos Molinari Marotto, Dr. Silvia Español and Dr. Gustavo Eduardo González, teachers and researchers at the UBA, reflected upon this development to which they have been contributing. Based on their information an attempt is made to explain cognitivism in Argentinean context. Cognitive revolution in Argentina When in 1983 the dictatorship in Argentina came to an end, democracy was re-established and so was academic life. Investigation had hardly been carried out during the dictatorship that had started in ’76. There was some education - Carlos Molinari studied at the UBA from ’79 to ’84 - but hardly any students. Fear of being called subversive, what for the military government meant terrorism and thus needed to be exterminated, smothered intellectual life. Many students disappeared and many people fled from Argentina. It was within the reorganization after the dictatorship that cognitive psychology as the theoretical framework from the U.S. entered the UBA Mental functions and phenomena had been studied before, however, without the cognitivist framework that was elaborated in the United States. The work of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, that can also be considered as cognitive psychology, had already been introduced before the dictatorship.. The arrival was an institutional matter. The contest held in 1985 to fulfill the position of head professor in General Psychology was won by Aníbal Duarte. The ’72 UBA graduate came back from studying in the United States in ’83 and accepting his new position proclaimed a “revolution”. He announced the arrival of cognitive psychology. “At long last”, because this had happened in the United States some thirty years before (González, 2007). The team of teachers that under direction of Duarte designed the new program for General Psychology consisted of Federico González, Gustavo González, José Humberto Fernández and Alba Mustaca. The program was taught for the first time in the second ‘cuatrimestre’ of 1986. One year at the UBA consists of two four month periods or ‘cuatrimestres’. It was inspired upon “the state of the art cognitive psychology that had already established itself internationally as the methodological and conceptual base for investigating mental functions”. The program of General Psychology no longer required passing through the history of psychology. It was now geared towards “skills for investigating basic psychological processes” (González, 2007). However, only half of the psychology students were taught General Psychology according to state of the art cognitive psychology. Gustavo González talks of a political and academic mistake made by Aníbal Duarte: letting his predecessor José Töpf, popular among students, hold a parallel chair of General Psychology. General Psychology remains divided in two chairs. Students can choose either for the cognitivist approach or the cultural psychological approach inspired by Vygotsky as taught in General Psychology “II”. González mentions that General Psychology “I” has been the only obligatory course within the basic curriculum mentioning the investigation of basic psychological processes. The limited amount of opportunities to introduce students to cognitive psychology was not the only reason for its slow development. Lack of interest and resistance by students played an even more significant part. Ideological enemies The first couple of years meant a struggle for what Carlos Molinari considers to be “an island” in UBA psychology. This was primarily because the Duarte cognitivist group was ill received by students. “We were ideological enemies,” says Molinari. The fact that cognitive psychology was based in the United States for the students implied some sort of psychological imperialism. According to Gustavo González it was hard to make the students understand that cognitive psychology was different from behaviorism, a practice that was already considered to be very conservative both scientifically and politically. While cognitivism in the U.S. is conceived as a critique of behaviorism, in Argentina they were strongly associated with each other. Given behaviorist Alba Mustaca’s early cooperation with the Duarte group, on an institutional level this association did make some sense. González, however, mentions the mixing of politics and ideology with academic standards as the main reason for this association. Whereas this mixing happens less obviously in the U.S. and in Europe because there scientific neutrality is pursued, in Argentinean public academic life a clear ideological choice was made. Public universities in Argentina have always been communitarian, which according to González explains the presence of ideologies concerned with common man’s best interests. The UBA in particular has a progressive profile, that in the decades before the dictatorship was even revolutionary and associated with left-winged militant activism. This profile in the wider Argentinean political context meant not merely socialism, but a fight against imperialism both in an economical and a cultural sense. At the UBA it also meant resisting against behaviorism and cognitivism, seen as a part of U.S. imperialism and conservative ideology. Within the U.S. cognitive psychology is presented as politically neutral This neutrality is debated, also within the United States. For example Bruner (1990)., but in another country with different politics it is interpreted otherwise. The academic-ideological blend had caused a success rather than a struggle for psychoanalysis See for example Plotkin, M. (2003) Freud en las pampas. Bueno Aires: Editorial Sudamericana.. Psychoanalysis was associated with progressive political movements, was considered subversive and was favored by many students. Before the dictatorship, especially in Marxist and critical circles, it was already popular and afterwards, seen as a part of political resistance against the military government, it was even more successful. At the University of Buenos Aires, and most of the other public universities in Argentina, the dominant approach in psychology still is psychoanalysis. The story of its success is also the story of the marginality of other psychologies, especially cognitive psychology for its problematic dialogue with psychoanalysis. In short, cognitive psychology’s poor or nonexistent exchange with psychoanalysis, its connections to supposedly more conservative behaviorism and Northern America imperialism did not do its reception at the UBA any good. Even though the small cognitivist group was working hard to make new information available for students and trying to get them interested Making Anglophone information available to students at public universities is actually very time-consuming because it involves a lot of translation: literature has to be available in Spanish otherwise it cannot be an obligatory part of the curriculum., very few students remained to join their enterprise. The whole General Psychology I program had to be built from scratch. Duarte had personally subscribed to a couple of important journals to become familiar with and keep up with cognitive psychology, such as Cognition, Experimental Psychology and Psychological Review. Confronted with new material for discussion from abroad, the chair reunions were quite polemic. Every member of the group studied and taught a particular subject. Duarte allowed them to teach whatever they could, based on their simultaneous research on the subject. Silvia Español praises the intellectual climate that Duarte created. She joined his group in 1986. Her subject being language, which implied teaching about Chomsky, she didn’t encounter too much resistance from the students. “Chomsky was more appreciated because of his ideological involvement. This made it easier to introduce cognitive psychology”. According to González, once the students realized that cognitive psychology was more similar to the work of Piaget than it was to Watson, their resistance diminished. He also mentions the development of neighboring philosophy of mind and the changing perception due to advances in computer technology as reasons why people gradually opened up to cognitive psychology. Molinari has seen students’ critical preconceptions diminish and the association with behaviorism disappear over the years. Nevertheless, cognitive psychology has just one academic chair and remains small compared to the numerous big psychoanalytical chairs. Cognitive studies Now educating students was not the only quest for the cognitive psychologists at the UBA. In accordance with the emphasis in cognitive psychology, experimental investigation was enhanced. In 1988 the programa de estudios cognitivos (program of cognitive studies) was created. In the first Anuario de Investigaciones (Yearbook of investigation in psychology) published in 1989, it is explicitly mentioned. About the preceding years only some quantitative information about the psychology research can be found. The program was not mentioned in the UBA research report Programación UBACyT 1988-1990. In this report it appears that most scientific activity and financing happened in biology, medicine, and pharmaceutics, in technical and exact areas. Investigation was scarce and financing lowest in the area of humanities. In social sciences and psychology an increase of the number of investigations can be witnessed. The number of registered investigations in psychology went up from 9 in ’87 to 15 in ’88 / ’89. Ten of these projects were new, five were in continuation. Among these investigations were one neuropsychological project and some in the tradition of Piaget, but none in cognitive psychology as such. The first research grants within the program of cognitive studies were received in April 1989. Silvia Español got a CONICET CONICET (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas) is the council organization for scientific research in Argentina, a part of the ministry of science, technology and productive innovation. perfection grant (beca de perfeccionamiento) for her project about text comprehension. Ricardo Minervino got a CONICET initiation grant (beca de iniciación) for his project about reasoning by analogy. The ’89 research yearbook reports lots of unsubsidized projects: two by Español and Duarte, three by Humberto Fernandez (implicit memory and selective attention), two by Federico González (simulation and evaluation of cognitive processing) and two by Gustavo González (cognition and vocational election). In the early nineties, years of economic recovery in Argentina, more sources became available for research. In 1992 the faculty started to buy many psychological journals and the library started expanding rapidly. Duarte no longer had to buy the journals himself. Also, less research had to be carried out voluntarily. Starting in 1991 UBACyT UBACyT (Ciencia y Tecnología) organizes research recognized and financed by the University of Buenos Aires. subsidies for students and researchers became available. In the ’92 / ’93 research yearbook, the first five members of the cognitive studies program who had won an UBACyT scholarship are mentioned. Two were coordinated by Duarte and three coordinated by Federico González. It concerned one perfection grant, two initiation grants and two student grants. Only two projects remained unsubsidized. When Carlos Molinari joined the cognitive studies program and the General Psychology I chair in 1993, the development of cognitive psychology at the UBA had already accelerated. He was one of the first researchers to present their work at the first Jornadas de Investigación (psychological research congress at the UBA), held in December 1994. With Español and Duarte, Molinari started the first cognitive studies UBACyT project about anaphoric comprehension in 1995. In ’96 the first Revista del Instituto de Investigaciones (Journal of the psychological research institute) was published, and thus enhanced publication of research. More students with talent for research were attracted to join. Gradually the program received more subsidies and grants. From its foundation in 1988 until now the program of cognitive studies has received nine research subsidies (both CONICET and UBACyT) and seventeen scholarships have been given to its members (UBACyT, CONICET, the Argentinean ministry of education and FOMEC FOMEC: Fondo para el Mejoramiento de la Calidad Universitaria (Fund for the improvement of universitary quality). This fund stimulates doctorates abroad, after which the scholars return to Argentina.). At this moment at the program of cognitive studies four UBACyT research projects are in course. Even though there’s plenty of room and funds available for research, according to Molinari experimental research still frightens students and the program grows slowly. At the end of the nineties a project was initiated to expand cognitive psychology’s education and attract researchers. Masters of cognition The nineties had been accommodating to the cognitive psychologists. In the course of the nineties more optional subjects in cognitive psychology were offered and in 1999 the program started organizing a cognitive psychology master. The new millennium, however, came with adversities. Due to the economical crisis, escalating in major riots and political chaos at the end of 2001, resources were limited. The psychology faculty, for example, had to stop buying international psychology journals. Nevertheless, the cognitive psychology maestría The maestría is slightly different from a master. It is a postgraduate program. Students first have to receive their licenciatura or license in psychology. A Maestría however, is not a doctorate, the latter is a doctorado. was launched in 2003 by Español, Fernández, Minervino and Molinari, under direction of Gustavo González. Its objectives are “transmitting what is currently known about basic cognitive processes of the human mind, transmitting the knowledge produced in other disciplines gathered under cognitive science, such as philosophy of mind and neuropsychology and thus stimulate investigation of cognitive functions”. Aníbal Duarte had assisted the creation of the master, but meanwhile gradually withdrew from academic life. Gustavo González replaced him as head professor of General Psychology. The latter mentions that this year (2009) there have been 70 applicants for the master and that this means a great increase of interest. Fifty percent of the students are from abroad, mainly from Latin America. The master program is unique for Argentina, even though at other universities, especially private universities, cognitive psychology has been more strongly advocated than at the UBA. Dispersion or isolation of cognitive psychology? Now the development of cognitive psychology at the UBA has so far been directly associated with the cognitive studies program and the chair of General Psychology I. Seen from this nucleus that was formed around Aníbal Duarte there has been little interaction with other chairs and programs. After over twenty years at the UBA, cognitive psychology has remained encapsulated, according to both Molinari and González. Even the exchange with similar minded neuropsychologists and behaviorists is very limited. On the other hand the cognitive vocabulary, the talk of mental functions like memory, perception, learning, language and attention, is found in other areas. Learning is studied from many angles in developmental psychology. Memory is studied in neuropsychology and its defects in clinical psychology. Perception and attention are studied in organizational psychology. Language is studied in social psychology and in linguistics. So even though the cognitivist group remained isolated, cognition as a psychological object did not. At the UBA however, this is not due to U.S. cognitive psychology as advocated by Duarte and his colleagues, but rather to the predominating psychology of Piaget and Vygotsky, as focused on development. Cognitive psychology at the UBA is not as isolated and unified as it has sounded so far. Even when it only concerns U.S. cognitivism, González admits that it “is a mosaic of micro-theories”. Letting go of the strict Anglo-Saxon definition, Español maintains that in Argentina “lots of things fit under the umbrella of cognitive psychology”. For her the common denominator is methodological rigor. The UBA cognitivists do report some exchange with SADAF, the Argentinean society for analytic philosophy, concerning philosophy of mind. There has been some international exchange too, that became possible with the availability of subsidies during the 1990’s. In 1995 the Spanish cognitivist and cultural psychologist Angel Rivière gave a course in Buenos Aires. Rivière is famous for combining Piaget’s genetic epistemology with cognitivism and above all for welcoming vygotskian psychology in Spain in the 80’s. Rivière’s book La psicología de Vygotsky (1984) is a classic in Hispanic psychology. His approach was well received by Silvia Español, who left to study with him in Madrid in 1996. After completing her doctorate under Rivière’s supervision she returned to the UBA. There has been mainly an exchange with Spain and some with France, where Argentinean Juan Seguí works in cognitive psycholinguistics. “In 2000 and 2001 together with SADAF some guests were invited from the United States, but other than that there’s hardly been intellectual traffic with the U.S. even though the majority of the literature has its origins there,” states Molinari. Reasons might be a lack of interest from the U.S. in Argentinean research and a lack of exchange funding. However, also in the Spanish speaking scientific community interesting developments have been going on. Influenced by Angel Rivière the boundaries between cognitivism and vygotskian psychology are tried. For example by Silvia Español, who no longer exclusively works for the cognitive studies program. Nevertheless, at the UBA the cognitivist and vygotskian General Psychology programs remain separated. Cognitive psychology, as seen by Molinari and González, is both more isolated as underdeveloped. They maintain that it lags years behind with respect to international cognitive psychology. At the same time they consider the slow but critical reception of cognitive psychology from abroad as probably a good thing. According to González the far reaching atomization in Anglophone cognitive psychology makes the human subject evaporate. He thus questions the contribution of too experimentally sophisticated research. Molinari is only interested in the more ambitious cognitive theories and models. As seen by Español cognitive psychology is a methodologically sound base to investigate various psychological subjects. These complex subjects, however, also merit a cultural psychological approach. Conclusion and discussion Cognitive psychology, as the U.S. based theoretical framework, has slowly developed at the UBA. This is due to the particular public academic climate in Argentina that is thoroughly political. Historical political events like the dictatorship and the economic crisis weigh heavily on academic life. But contrary to Gustavo González and Carlos Molinari I would not say that cognitive psychology in Argentina lags many years behind. This would only apply if U.S. cognitive psychology would be considered the norm. Ángel Rivière used to say that psychology in the United States was a scientific anomaly rather than the norm, because in Europe (as in Argentina) psychologists kept on investigating cognition without behaviorist interruption. It can be maintained that the cognitive revolution is merely a U.S. phenomenon and that it does not apply in Argentina. Cognition was continuously studied there, but in a piagetian and vygotskian manner. The ‘cognitive revolution’ was merely the introduction of the behaviorist based cognitive psychology from the United States. The fact that this framework was not that well-received in Argentina can hardly be considered as Argentinean psychology lagging behind. The critical consummation of U.S. cognitive psychology is more likely progressive. The better elaborated theories are preferred over the pile of incoherent experimental data. A focus on the subject is enhanced instead of on methodology, on what is researched instead of how. Furthermore cognitive psychology’s modest place among various psychological approaches from various countries will eventually enhance a well-elaborated interdisciplinary view upon the mental human being, taking into consideration cultural variety. Something that will be far more difficult in mainstream U.S. academic psychology, as it is still limited by lingering behaviorist scientific norms. Even though psychoanalysis in Argentina can be considered as dominating as cognitivism in the U.S. and some parts of Europe, there seems to be more room at the UBA for other approaches in psychology that need not bear the quite limiting and probably even deceptively neutral adjective ‘scientific’ or the simply erroneous adjective ‘international’. Sources http://www.psi.uba.ar/posgrado2009_2/maestrias/cognitiva/ http://www.psi.uba.ar/investigaciones/investigaciones.php#novedades Interview with Carlos Molinari: 25-04-2009 Interview with Silvia Español: 18-05-2009 Interview with Gustavo González: 18-05-2009 Anuario de Investigaciones (1989 - …). Secrataria e Instituto de Investigaciones, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Buenos Aires. Programación UBACyT 1988-1990. Secrataria e Instituto de Investigaciones, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Buenos Aires. Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. London: Harvard University Press. González, G. (2007) La enseñanza de la Psicología General. In: A. Leibovich de Duarte (Ed.) Ayer y hoy: 50 años de enseñanza de la Psicología. EUDEBA: Buenos Aires. Floor van Alphen MSc – Faculty of Humanities – University of Amsterdam – Philosophy in Relation to Another Discipline July 2009 1