When I joined the University of Rouen in 1995 and was attached to the mathematics team, I was naturally led to coordonate a research group bringing together former members of the Mathematics and Psychology Group: Jean-Marie Grouin¹ and Marie-Paule Lecoutre (teacher-researchers at the UFR of Psychology, Sociology and Education Sciences and members of the Psy.Co, EA 1780, Mont-Saint-Aignan) and Jacques Poitevineau who was doing his doctoral thesis in psychology under my direction.

This is how the ERIS, Statistical Induction Reasoning Team, was set up. It is based on the complementarity of psychological work about the cognitive processes involved in probabilistic situations and normative work about statistical inference (especially the Bayesian model).

The main objectives of our work were as follows.
• Development of statistical methods for the planning and analysis of experimental data, whose fields of application include psychology, medicine and pharmacology. This work was naturally integrated into the statistical team of the Raphaël Salem mathematics laboratory (CNRS and Université de Rouen, UMR 6085).
• Production and diffusion of statistical software for the implementation of these methods.
• Promotion of these methods through teaching, methodological seminars, training courses, theme days, statistical consulting, etc., in the academic and industrial sectors.
• Experiments about the practices and attitudes of statistical users, and study of the cognitive processes involved in various probability situations.

In addition to the members mentioned above who have participated in this research on a permanent basis, regular collaborations have been carried out on specific themes.

As far as statistical research is concerned, I worked in particular with statisticians from the pharmaceutical industry, in particular with Gérard Derzko (who was head of the department of Biostatistics at Sanofi-Aventis Research in Montpellier)² and Pierre Bunouf (who was head of the department of Biostatistics at Laboratoires Pierre Fabre in Labège), who defended a statistical thesis under my direction in 2006.

The experimental research on probabilistic situations was done in collaboration with members of the Psychology Laboratory of the University of Rouen³, and in particular Evelyne Clément and Katia Rovira. Master's and postgraduate students in psychology and mathematics were regularly associated with the various themes.

Finally, in the framework of statistical consulting collaborations were established with members of Guy Denhière's teams (then C.N.R.S and E.P.H.E., EA 4004, CHArt, Paris) and LCPE by Danièle Dubois (then IJLRA/LAM-LCPE, UMR 7190, Paris³), as well as with statisticians from the pharmaceutical industry.

Bruno LECOUTRE

¹Jean-Marie Grouin left ERIS after a few years.

²I was a permanent consultant for Sanofi-Aventis from 1989 to 2013.

³I was an associate member of these teams

ERIS has always been a virtual team.
Ell never claimed official recognition.
It existed through its website and publications.

At the end of the 1970s, the "Mathematics and Psychology Group" was set up informally around Henry Rouanet, Director of Research at the C.N.R.S. It notably includes Marie-Paule Lecoutre, who has become an "attacé de recherche" at the C.N.R.S. in 1979 under his direction and Bruno Lecoutre who defended in 1980 a thesis on statistics under his direction.
The Mathematics and Psychology Group then officially exists as an Associate Unit of the C.N.R.S. and René Descartes University (Paris V). Jacques Poitevineau joins the team in ??

The regulation of the C.N.R.S. does not allow you to be a team manager for more than two terms. In 1995 Henry Rouanet, who could no longer continue to lead the team, made it clear to the C.N.R.S. that he prefers that the Mathematics and Psychology Group disappears. Its members who work at the C.N.R.R. must then join another team.