The University of Barcelona awards the Medal d’Or to Nicholas Mackintosh
Recently we received news that on November 11 the award ceremony will be held. Medal d’Or from the University of Barcelona to Nicholas J. Mackintosh Emeritus Professor in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge from 1981 to 2002.
Mackintosh had been proposed an Honoris Causa Doctorate by the UB months before his death.
The career of Nicholas Mackintosh
Professor Mackintosh, who died in February 2015, He was internationally recognized for his contributions in the field of psychometry, intelligence and the study of learning processes in animals yes Some of his main works as an author are the books The Psychology of Animal Learning (1974), about Comparative Psychology, and Cyril Burt: Fraud or Famed (1995), although his most important text is possibly IQ and Human Intelligence (1998), which served to recognize and focus the problem of low performance in multiethnic schools in the United Kingdom and which, in addition, pointed to conclusions whose impact goes far beyond Experimental Psychology.
Nicholas Mackintosh helped discover many of the psychological mechanisms through which intelligence is expressed and, through this type of research, made it possible to change our conception of the nature of cognition, learning and intellect. For his career as a researcher, he was awarded the Biological Medal and with him President’s Award from the British Psychological Society in 1981 and 1986, respectively.
Regarding its relationship with the University of Barcelona, It is worth highlighting his collaboration with Victoria Díez Chamizo professor in the Department of Basic Psychology at the UB, in research focused on associative conditioning and learning and whose results served to reinforce the hypothesis that spatial learning has many similarities with simple associative learning.
Your role as a trainer and lecturer
Beyond his career as a researcher, from his role as a teaching mentor and lecturer he emphasized the need to recognize the limitations of the research carried out around the concept of “intelligence” and the construct of the G factor, so as not to venture conclusions based on simple fact of its coincidence with the political or ideological motivations of each one. Similarly, Nicholas Mackintosh was critical of the oversized scope that the application of neuroscience could have in specific legal courses.
Besides, He dedicated much of his life to teaching university training classes and participating in conferences attended by younger students both in Cambridge and in many other universities around the world that he attended punctually.
Where and when is the event held?
The medal ceremony will take place on Wednesday, November 11, 2015 at 12 noon, in the auditorium of the historic building of the University of Barcelona (Plaça de la Universitat). You can find more information about the event by clicking on this link.
