by Johan Wagemans
Knight Géry Jacques Marie Madeleine Ghislain van Outryve d’Ydewalle was born in Bruges on December 18, 1946, as the fifth of six children of Baron Pierre van Outryve d’Ydewalle and Marie-Thérèse Joos de ter Beerst. Géry completed his secondary education at the Sint-Lodewijks College in Bruges. At that time, he was especially active as a flutist in the Collegium Instrumentale Brugense under Patrick Peire. Classical music has always remained one of his great passions, alongside psychology.
Géry d’Ydewalle studied philosophy and psychology at KU Leuven. He graduated in 1969 with a licentiate thesis under Professor Joseph Nuttin on time perspective and learning processes. With a mandate as a research fellow from the then National Fund for Scientific Research (NFWO), he conducted research that led to his doctorate in psychology in 1974, also under Professor Nuttin, who would remain his mentor for quite some time. As a postdoctoral researcher at the NFWO, he continued working from 1974 to 1978 on memory and learning processes, including the distinction between intentional and incidental learning, learning with or without prior instructions.
After his dissertation, he was mainly interested in developing mathematical models that can explain how feedback can facilitate or hinder the recall of answers. To pursue this, he went to Indiana University in Bloomington in 1972-73, where mathematical psychology was in full swing, and in 1977-78 to Rockefeller University in New York, where he worked with Professor William K. Estes.
Immediately after Professor Joseph Nuttin’s retirement in 1980, Géry d’Ydewalle was appointed lecturer and four years later he became a full professor. In 1980, he was also appointed Director of the Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, a position he held until his emeritus status in 2012. In the years following his appointment, Géry also took the first steps in collaborating with colleagues in educational science to study how test expectations influence motivation and the retention of study material. He received international recognition for this work, with appointments in London as guest professor at Birkbeck College (in 1983-84) and the London School of Economics (in 1986-87).
To make the hidden processes in information processing more visible, he then took the step in 1986 to acquire equipment for recording eye movements. To this end, he first received funding from the FWO Vlaanderen and subsequently also a Concerted Research Action (GOA in Dutch), the first in the Humanities at that time. From then on, eye movement recording became an important aspect of the Laboratory’s research, with several doctorates in that direction, including applied research, for example, on reading subtitles in foreign-language films on television or viewing and remembering advertising panels along football fields.
As a form of international visibility and recognition, the “European Conference on Eye Movements” was organized in Leuven in 1991. Around the same time, on the initiative of the Minister for Science Policy, an incentive program on Artificial Intelligence was launched, through which Géry successfully submitted a proposal for research on knowledge extraction and representation. This was a very successful period during which the Laboratory experienced significant expansion. Recognition for this growth and flourishing soon followed with a number of highlights that coincidentally occurred in 1992, such as the organization of the “International Congress of Psychology” for several thousand participants in Brussels (with Paul Bertelson from ULB as co-president and Paul Eelen from KU Leuven as secretary) and the awarding of the Francqui Prize.
Géry d’Ydewalle was not only a celebrated, internationally recognized researcher, he was also a passionate teacher. Immediately after his appointment in 1980, he taught a course in general and experimental psychology at the Faculty of Medicine, which he continued to teach throughout his entire career. Within the psychology program, he was all that time the face of experimental psychology, as the professor teaching “Functieleer” (in Dutch; which is close to “Psychonomics” or “Cognitive Psychology” from an international perspective). In that role, he taught thousands of psychology and medical students, inspiring many of them with his enthusiasm for psychology as a science, and experimental psychology in particular.
Géry was not only a scientist and educator, but also an administrator. From the beginning of his career, he was encouraged by Nuttin to take on roles within the “International Union of Psychological Science,” an association with 600,000 members worldwide. He served for many years as its administrator, secretary-general, and president. He was also president of the Belgian Association for Psychology (1993-1996) and secretary-general of the National Committee for Psychology. In 1992, he was admitted to the Class of Human Sciences of the KVAB (the Royal Flemish Academy of Sciences and the Arts), and from 2010 to 2014, he became Permanent Secretary.
In addition to his significant contributions to research, teaching, and service, Géry also played an important role as a mentor. He supervised 32 doctoral dissertations on topics ranging from memory deficits to language acquisition, bilingualism, and categorization, from attention, reading, and eye movements to reasoning. In addition, he also guided around 400 students in their master thesis projects, often on applied topics such as music psychology, film perception, internet navigation, and so on.
Géry d’Ydewalle will be primarily remembered for the significant role he played in enhancing the international reputation of the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology at KU Leuven, as a mentor to a large group, and as a supervisor of many doctoral theses that in one way or another continue to carry that legacy both domestically and abroad.
Marc Richelle recently passed away on January 6, 2021. He was born in 1930 on the 28th of February. He first studied Romance philology in the University of Liège and, later, obtained a PhD in psychology. During his doctoral training, he had the opportunity to spend research periods in the University of Geneva and Harvard University.
As the head of the laboratory of Experimental Psychology from 1962 to 1995, he directed and supervised research on different fields such as psychopharmacology, cognitive development, psychology of language and psychology of music. He has particularly developed the following two research topics: behavioural variability on the one hand and temporal regulation of behaviour and time estimation on the other hand.
Marc Richelle published more than 200 papers and about 20 books as author, co-author or scientific editor in French (e.g., Pourquoi les Psychologues? / Le conditionnement operant / B. F. Skinner ou le péril behavioriste / Du nouveau sur l’esprit?), and in English (e.g., Time in animal behaviour / B. F. Skinner: A reappraisal). He played an important role by introducing and disseminating in the French-speaking European countries the methods and theories of operant conditioning with a particular focus on Burrhus Frederic Skinner’s work. He was also influenced by Jean Piaget’s theoretical framework.
He served as Dean of the Faculty of Psychology and Education from 1986 to 1990. He was made Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Lille-Charles de Gaulle, the University of Geneva, the University of Coïmbra, the University of Lerida, and, finally, the University of Lisbon. In 1990 he was awarded the prestigious John Ernest Solvay Prize. He was a member of the Royal Academies of Science and the Arts of Belgium, but also a foreign member of the Academy of Science in Lisbon.
Beyond all these achievements, Marc Richelle has been an inspiring professor for many generations of students and researchers by instilling in them scientific rigour and by spotlighting the importance of the experimental approach in psychological sciences.
He is survived by his two daughters and his son. We address our condolences to his family and relatives.
Serge Brédart (Université de Liège) and Xavier Seron (Université Catholique de Louvain)
Please read also the obituary article written by Prof. John Wearden, a former collaborator of March Richelle.
