Advocacy Archive

FY 2006 Appropiations for the National Science Foundation

Alan G. Kraut, Ph.D, Executive Director
American Psychological Society

Summary of Recommendations

  • APS supports the Coalition for National Science Funding recommendation of $6 billion for the National Science Foundation in FY 2006.
  • We ask that the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Directorate be funded at the 10.3 percent increase the President proposed in last year's NSF budget request.

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee: Thank you for this opportunity to present the views of the American Psychological Society (APS) on the FY 2006 appropriations of the National Science Foundation (NSF). APS is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion, protection, and advancement of the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in research, application, teaching, and the improvement of human welfare. Our 16,000 members are scientists and academics at the Nation's universities and colleges. The NSF supports many members of APS, and a great deal of basic research in our field simply could not exist without NSF funding.

The Nation's Premiere Basic Research Enterprise

When the Administration requested a mere 2.47 percent ($132 million) increase for the National Science Foundation in FY 2006, it placed the progress of scientific research on hold. We are extremely disappointed as the request will barely maintain the costs of inflation, and will not sustain and advance the nation's investment in scientific research.

In the spirit of the NSF Authorization Act of 2002 (HR 4664) passed by the 107th Congress and signed by the President (PL 107-368), we join with the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF) in recommending $6 billion for the National Science Foundation. Matching the reauthorization would lead us toward a much-needed doubling of the Nation's premiere basic research enterprise — bringing NSF from $4.8 billion to $9.8 billion over five years. The basic science community asks the Committee to make the underlying intent of this authorization a reality. The increases Congress has provided for NSF in the past, and the increase we are recommending today, are important steps in offsetting the under-funding that is a chronic condition for NSF. We hope you will continue to expand NSF's budget.

The Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Directorate

On June 1, David W. Lightfoot, PhD will become NSF Assistant Director for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences. We ask the Committee to join us in welcoming Dr. Lightfoot.

The Directorate for the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) supports funding for basic behavioral research. Under the Administration's budget plan, SBE would receive $198.8 million, 1 percent over FY 2005. This comes on the heels of a series of below-average increases in previous years.

Over the years, many initiatives of the SBE Directorate have been encouraged. But this is not what has occurred recently. Although the President proposed a 10.3 percent increase for SBE in FY 2005, SBE received an increase of only 6.8 percent over FY 2004. A similar process occurred the previous fiscal year. We are concerned about this shortfall, given the enormous potential of behavioral science to address many critical issues facing the Nation. To offset previous years' under-funding, we ask the Committee to fund SBE at the 10.3 percent increase the President proposed in last year's NSF budget request. At the very least, we ask that the SBE Directorate share proportionately in any such increases ultimately received by NSF.

An Overview of Basic Psychological Research: NSF programs and initiatives that involve psychological science are our best chance to solve the enigma that has perplexed us for so long: How does the human mind work and develop? APS members include many scientists who conduct basic research in areas such as learning, cognition, and memory, and the linked mechanisms of how we process information through visual and auditory perception. Others study judgment and decision-making (the focus of a Nobel prize recently awarded to APS Fellow and NSF grantee Daniel Kahneman); mathematical reasoning (the focus of the most recent President's Medal of Science awarded to APS Fellow and NSF Grantee R. Duncan Luce); language development; the developmental origins of behavior; and the impact of individual, environmental and social factors in behavior.

What's more, basic psychological research supported by NSF and conducted by APS members ultimately has had a wide range of applications, including designing technology that incorporates the perceptual and cognitive functioning of humans; teaching math to children; improving learning through the use of technology; developing more effective hearing aids and speech recognition machines; increasing workforce productivity; and ameliorating social problems such as prejudice or violence. While this is a diverse range of topics, all these areas of research are bound together by a simple notion: that understanding the human mind, brain, and behavior is crucial to maximizing human potential. That places these pursuits squarely at the forefront of several of the most pressing issues facing the Nation, this Congress, and the Administration.

We also believe that progress in psychological science will lead to advances in our powers to predict, detect, and prevent terrorism, in support of the basic science related to Homeland Security. In this time of uncertainty, where we can come to rely so heavily on technology to keep us safe and confident, we must turn to social behavior and cognition in order to maximize this technology. An understanding of how people process information will enable us to design technology that fits our needs and make us comfortable when using them. The potential for advances are limitless.

SBE Highlights

Research supported by the SBE Directorate has the potential to increase employee productivity, improve decision making in critical military or civilian emergency situations, and inform the public policymaking processes across a range of areas. To give just a few examples:

Perception, Action, and Cognition. The perception, action, and cognition program at NSF supports research on these three functions, and the development of these capacities. Topics include vision, audition, attention, memory, reasoning, written and spoken discourse, motor control, and developmental issues in all topic areas. The program encompasses a range of theoretical perspectives such as symbolic computation, complex systems, and a variety of methodologies including experimental studies and modeling. By studying high-level cognitive activities, we can discover the core of cognition and what cognition qualities are universal.

Cognitive Neuroscience Initiative. Cognitive neuroscience, within the last decade, has become an active and influential discipline, relying on the interaction of a number of sciences, including psychology, cognitive science, neurology, neuroimaging, physiology and others. The cross-disciplinary aspects of this field have spurred a rapid growth in significant scientific advances. Cognitive neuroscientists are able to clarify their findings by examining developmental and transformational aspects of these phenomena across the lifespan. With brain imaging and other non-invasive techniques, we are poised to confirm and extend these theories through studies of the living brain. The Cognitive Neuroscience program solicits innovative proposals aimed at advancing an understanding of how the human brain supports thought, perception, emotion, action, social processes, and other aspects of cognition and behavior. Scientists from a range of areas test theories about normal brain functioning; assess the behavioral consequences of brain damage; and reach new levels of understanding of how the brain develops and matures.

NSF's Children's Research Initiative. Recognizing that a combination of perspectives — cognitive, psychological, social, and neural -- is needed to fully understand how children develop and how they acquire and use knowledge and skills, the SBE Directorate supports interdisciplinary research centers that focus primarily on integrating traditionally disparate research disciplines concerned with child development. Known as the Children's Research Initiative (CRI), this program brings together such areas as cognitive development, broader cognitive science and broader developmental psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, anthropology, social psychology, sociology, family studies, cross-cultural research, and environmental psychology to name a few disciplines.

And at a broader level, SBE's Social and Economic Sciences (SES) Division supports research and related activities aimed at better understanding, both nationally and internationally, political, economic and social systems and how individuals and organizations function within them. Further, it supports research activities related to risk assessment and decision making by individuals and groups, methods and statistics applicable across the behavioral sciences and broadening participation in the social, behavioral and economic sciences.

Finally, NSF's ever-important Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) Division supports research activities to advance the fundamental understanding of behavioral and cognitive sciences by developing and advancing scientific knowledge and methods focused on human cognition and behavior, including perception, social behavior and learning.

In FY 2006, for example, $1.27 million will support core research in behavioral and cognitive sciences to enable additional research on human origins, documenting endangered languages, the neural substrates of cognition, children's development and fundamental human social processes. Additional dollars will also support important research-related activities focusing on human diversity, including those designed to more effectively broaden participation of underrepresented groups in behavioral and cognitive science activities.

Cross-Cutting Behavioral Initiatives at NSF

Human and Social Dynamics. Human and Social Dynamics (HSD) fosters breakthroughs in understanding human action and development by multi-disciplinary approaches to the causes and impact of social change. As it seeks to explore the convergence of biology, engineering, technology, and cognition, we will continue to learn more about decision-making and risk taking. For example, in FY 2006 NSF is looking to advance understanding by exploring the interplay of neurological, sensory-motor, psychological, informational and social and organizational systems that produce coordinated efforts between individuals.

As technology and engineering continue to develop at breakneck speed, it is essential that we study the human dynamics of such advances. One of the biggest challenges facing behavioral scientists is the understanding of everyday human performance and action, and how that is influenced by rapid change. HSD will support research that examines this challenge. The initiative seeks to refine our knowledge about decision-making, risk, and uncertainty, and then take this new knowledge and translate it into improved decision-making techniques. We live in a world where science such as this cannot be allowed to lag behind.

An overlapping area is decision-making under uncertainty. Decision-making under normal circumstances is complex enough; that complexity is compounded in a crisis. It is necessary to study such factors as distributed versus centralized decision making systems, new approaches to risk analyses, and the development of new tools and approaches to facilitate effective decision making and risk analysis under difficult or unique circumstances, including behavioral research in response to extreme events, such as terrorist attacks or natural disasters.

The Science of Learning. How people think, learn and remember are core NSF areas, drawing from topics across psychology: brain and behavior, learning, memory, perception, social psychology, and development. The challenge is: how can we apply and extend our knowledge of how people think, learn and remember to improve education?

The Science of Learning Centers, launched in FY 03, will advance our understanding of the learning process and learning technologies. The Centers will strengthen the ties between education research and the education workforce. They will build collaborative research communities to respond to new challenges as they arise.

In the Administration's request, the Science of Learning Centers program is slated for $23 million, a welcome 15.9 percent increase over FY 05. The Centers will extend the frontiers of learning knowledge through investigations in human-computer interactions, cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and child learning and cognitive development.

In closing, I want to note that building and sustaining the capacity for innovation and discovery in the behavioral sciences is a goal of the National Science Foundation. We ask that you encourage NSF's efforts in these areas, not just those activities described here, but the full range of activities supported by the SBE directorate and by NSF at large. Your support will help NSF lay the groundwork for this long-overdue emphasis on these sciences. Thank you.