In Memoriam: Arne Öhman (1943–2020)

On March 19th, 2020, Arne Öhman, a distinguished member of the Society for Psychophysiological Research (SPR) passed away. Arne was a colleague, co-investigator, teacher, mentor, close friend of many of us, and all are greatly saddened by his absence. He leaves to us, however, the fruits of his stellar career as a scientist and psychophysiologist, a leading figure in psychology and neuroscience research, and importantly, a significant contributor to the development of SPR as an international society. Born in Ljusdal, Sweden (1943), Arne received his Ph.D. in Psychology, at the University of Uppsala in 1971. In 1976, he was appointed Professor of Somatic Psychology at the University of Bergen, Norway, 1976–1982 and then, back in Sweden, Professor of Clinical Psychology at Uppsala, 1982–1993. He subsequently accepted a professorship (Section on Psychology) at the prestigious Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, where he remained for 17 years, ultimately serving as a primary research leader, Senior scientist, and Head of the Department of Clinical Neuroscience. Over the years, Arne received many awards and honorific appointments. Most notably, he was elected a voting member of the Nobel Assembly (1997–2010) that allots science’s most esteemed honors. Arne was also a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Finish Academy of Science and Letters, and in 2011, he received the distinguished Wilhelm Wundt-William James Award at the European Congress of Psychology. Arne was a vital, engaged participant in SPR, a regular at our annual meetings, and over the years a significant contributor to SPR’s administration. He served on the SPR Publication Board, (1978–1981), the SPR Board of Directors (1980–1983), and, in 1983 Arne was elected President of SPR. Subsequently, at the 2001 SPR meeting in Montreal, Arne received our highest SPR award, for Distinguished Contributions to Psychophysiology (Levenson, 2003), recognizing his outstanding and enduring contribution to our science. Arne’s body of research work—reported in well over 200 published articles—is a major contribution to the study of emotion and cognition. His early, 1986 SPR Presidential Address, Fear The Face and Face The Beast, a study of animal and social fears, almost instantly became a seminal paper on emotion’s evolutionary development (Öhman, 1986). His research was a life-long, pioneering program on the study of affect—fear, orienting and attention, phobia and preparedness, stress, anxiety—investigations based on studies of both animals and humans and guided by a steadily evolving evolutionary theory. In this research, he employed the full armamentarium of psychophysiological measures, assessing both body and brain—testing his theories, developing novel paradigms that quickly became a standard for investigators, and employing increasingly sophisticated methods of data analysis. In 2011, he hosted an international festschrift, ARNE (Affective Regulation and the Neuroscience of Emotion), bringing together animal and human researchers, sharing and debating findings, and all honoring Arne’s monumental contributions to the field. I (PJL) first came to know and admire Arne, when as a Research Fellow from Uppsala, he joined us as an academic visitor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Four years after receiving his Ph.D., Arne was already a highly successful scientist with an impressive list of publications, studies assessing phobias and preparedness, orienting behavior, and electrodermal conditioning. At that time, unlike today, interactions between research psychologists in the United States and researchers in continental Europe were not at all common. In many of our discussions, Arne lamented this fact, and the absence of European investigators publishing in SPR’s journal, Psychophysiology. He was of course very familiar with the excellent psychophysiological research then being conducted throughout continental Europe—not only in Scandinavia, but in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, France, Spain, and Eastern Europe. Importantly, Arne viewed psychological science as most importantly an international enterprise. He believed that science advanced as the research collectivity increased, with “all contributing to one and the same body of knowledge”, an issue that he brought to the SPR leadership, the Editor-in-chief of Psychophysiology, and the Publication Board, all of whom heartily agreed that an international initiative should be pursued. Thus, in 1979, an Editorial appeared in Psychophysiology (Öhman, 1979), inviting submissions for a new, special issue of our Journal, devoted exclusively to articles submitted by psychophysiologists from continental Europe. Articles would be submitted in English. However, Arne knew this might prove a challenge for non-English speaking investigators, and enlisted special reviewers who would work together with the authors, clarifying text, and facilitating translation. Initially, submissions for the special issue were a worrisomely few; but then, with the intense efforts of the Issue’s European Advisory Committee (Niels Birbaumer, University of Tubingen, C. H. M. Brunia, University of Tilburg, Irene Martin, University of London, and Dieter Vaitl, University of Giessen), ultimately over 40 manuscripts from 13 different European countries were received. The impact of this special issue of Psychophysiology (Öhman & Lang, 1981) was profound. Widely read and discussed on both sides of the Atlantic, many SPR members learned for the first time, in detail, about significant research work in continental Europe, and European authors disseminated their publications widely to students and colleagues. The effect was a progressive increase in members joining SPR, and submissions from Europe (and other countries) increasing commensurately. In what would turn out be a very short time our Journal, Psychophysiology, could justly display its banner as The International Journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research. Today SPR is clearly multi-national in scope—in our membership, our leadership, the locations of our meetings, in the pages of Psychophysiology, and in the interactions and international collaborations among our members. It was Arne’s enlightening effort that set us on this inclusive path. I (FE) first knew Arne in 1983, after his period in Norway, when he came back to Uppsala as a Professor of Clinical Psychology. I was then a graduate student and remember well sitting at his first lecture, totally fascinated—so impressed that I contacted him the very next day, and asked if he would supervise my master’s thesis. This was the beginning of a long relationship—first as Arne’s student, then his colleague and research collaborator—a shared, much-valued friendship for life. I well recall the first SPR meeting in Europe, held in Amsterdam, in 1987. Arne was enthusiastic, strongly encouraging former and present PhD. students to participate. So I was there, together with Kenneth Hugdahl, Mats Fredriksson, Ulf Dimberg (former students), and Örjan Sundin, Ph.D., at that time a student like me. This first attendance at a meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research much impressed us, and it was not long after that (with Arne) one of my first publications was published in SPR’s journal, Psychophysiology (Esteves et al., 1994). Arne’s scientific thought and research had a dramatic impact on Sweden’s psychology. Until the seventies, psychodynamic theories were dominant, both in the academic world and in clinical practice. Arne was a pioneer in changing this emphasis and in developing Swedish psychology as a scientific discipline. First in Uppsala, and later at the Karolinska Institute, his contributions were remarkable. At the administrative and political level, he fought to give psychology a scientific status in a generally conservative academic milieu; as a teacher, he combined profound knowledge and rigor with an enthusiastic and genuine scientific curiosity; as a tutor and supervisor he contributed to the diffusion of psychological research to other universities and research centers through his PhD students and other scholarly disciples. Arne was a humanist: His respect for others, students, and colleagues, was intrinsic in his way of being. Research planning with him was always a rewarding, creative, and inspirational experience. Indeed, beneath a seemingly timid, remote Swedish surface, Arne was an understanding, considerate, caring person, as known to his many friends and well-loved family. His scientific family, of course, has been over decades the Society for Psychological Research. He was always keen on attending the Annual Meetings, participating in scientific debates, and enjoying discussions with his many friends in the international community. Serving as SPR President, and receiving the SPR Career Award were, among his many honors, those he most valued. Unfortunately, Arne’s last years were not what he had anticipated. He wanted to dedicate his retirement to writing, something he enjoyed and excelled at, but a long-term disease, with a progressive loss of cognitive capacities, destroyed these plans. His wife Gunilla, his children Martin and Kristina, the grandchildren, were his constant support during these last years. We, friends, students, colleagues, will always remember him as brilliant and creative, but also an understanding, warm and gentle person—someone that has contributed to making many of us better human beings. Peter J. Lang: Writing-original draft; Writing-review & editing. Francisco Esteves: Writing-original draft; Writing-review & editing.

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