About

I was appointed as a Professor of Psychology and Head of the School of Psychology in August 2021.

In this post I take overall responsibility for the teaching and research in Psychology within the University of Derby. As part of my role, I am a member of the College of Health, Psychology and Social Care (CHPSC) Executive Team; I am also a member of the University Professorial Council (UPC).

Research interests

My primary research interests concern learning and memory from a comparative and evolutionary perspective. I use Pavlovian and instrumental tasks to ascertain whether animals from different phyla (vertebrates and invertebrates like snails or flatworms) learn according to the same principles. I am also interested in how the capacity to acquire and store information from the environment has evolved within the animal kingdom.

My current areas of interest include: Spatial Learning; Perceptual Learning; Learning in Invertebrate Animals; Invertebrate Models of Addiction; Cue Competition Effects

Qualifications

• Licenciado en Psicologia (BSc Psychology). Universitat de Barcelona (Spain).
• Postgraduate Certificate in Systemic Family Therapy. Centre de Terapia Familiar de Barcelona, (Barcelona, Spain).
• PhD (Psychology). Universitat de Barcelona (Spain).
• Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) 

Recent conferences

• Rafat A. Mohammed Jawad, Gonzalo Urcelay & Jose Prados. Title: The role of the dopamine reward system on acquisition and extinction of conditioned place preferences (CPP) in the planaria. International Associative Learning Symposium. Gregynog, Wales (UK), April 2022
• Liam Jordan, Jose A. Alcalá, Jose Prados & Gonzalo Urcelay. Title: Conditioned Place Avoidance in the Aquatic Flatworm Planaria. International Associative Learning Symposium. Gregynog, Wales (UK), April 2022
• José A. Alcalá, Maïka Telga, José Prados, & Gonzalo P. Urcelay. Title: Overshadowing effect in an iterated trust game: exploring associative principles in social interactions. Eastern Psychological Association. New York (USA), March 2022
• Herrera, E., Prados, J., Buckley, M.G., & Urcelay, G.P. Title: Characterising different factors that are critical for cue competition: A t-maze spatial navigation study in humans. International Conference of the Spanish Society for Comparative Psychology. Spain, September 2021
• Herrera, E., Tazumi T., Prados, J., Buckley, M.G., & Urcelay, G.P. Title: Goal-landmark proximity modulates cue competition in human spatial navigation. International Associative Learning Symposium. Gregynog, Wales (UK), September 2021
• Zehra B. Turel, José Prados, & Gonzalo P. Urcelay. Title: Amnesia for acquisition or extinction of place preference memories: interaction with length of extinction. 2^nd Virtual Symposium of Comparative Psychology and Invertebrate Learning. July 2021
• Herrera, E., Tazumi T., Prados, J., Buckley, M.G., & Urcelay, G.P. Title: The effect of spatial contiguity on geometry learning in virtual navigation. Eastern Psychological Association. Unites States. March 2021

Recent publications

• Herrera de la Llave, E., Alcala, J. A., Tazumi, T., Buckley, M. G., Prados, J., & Urcelay, G. P. (2022). Temporal and spatial contiguity are necessary for competition between events. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, in press (December 2021)
• Ballesta, S., Cordon, C., Prados, J., and Artigas, A. A. (2021). Mechanisms of Perceptual Learning: Prolonged Intermixed Pre-exposure Reduces the Effectiveness of the Unique and the Common Elements. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, 47, 36-47. https://doi.org/10.1037/xan0000279
• Sal, F., Prados, J., and Urcelay, G. P. (2021). Nicotine chronic tolerance development and withdrawal in the planaria (Schmidtea mediterranea). Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behaviour, 200, 173075. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pbb.2020.173075
• Turel, Z. B., Prados, J., & Urcelay, G. P. (2020). Heat shock disrupts expression of excitatory and extinction memories in planaria: interaction with amount of exposure. Behavioural Processes, 179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2020.104197
• Prados, J., Fisher, C. T. L., Moreno-Fernandez, M. M., Tazumi, T., & Urcelay, G. P. (2020). Short- and long-term Habituation of photonegative and exploratory responses in the flatworm planaria (Dugesia). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, 46, 354-365
• Mohamed Jawad, R. A., Hutchinson, C. V., & Prados, J. (2018). Dissociation of place preference and tolerance responses to sucrose using a dopamine antagonist in the planarian. Psychopharmacology, 235, 829-836