Research

I am interested in the area where abstract ideas meet the physical world. We say that something feels close to us, that we are far from understanding it, or that we have hit rock bottom. With my colleagues I study bodily metaphors of this kind, whether they attach to space, to sound or to bodily sensation. We look for the connections between them, observe how people express them, and test whether they can be used in the psychological assessment of emotions and attitudes.

One line of this work builds instruments that offer a virtual environment in which a person moves objects closer, makes them bigger or warms them up. It turns out that people can express their relationships to others this way without words, which can be used for instance to measure the climate of a school class. The same approach can capture how strongly a particular word affects someone.

Two further topics have joined this line of work: trust in artificial intelligence, that is, when and why people believe algorithms, and the measurement of emotion from physiological signals, where I work with colleagues at the University of Connecticut on electrodermal activity.

Selected projects

2025–2028: Biography of Fake News with a Touch of AI: Dangerous Phenomenon through the Prism of Modern Human Sciences
Jan Amos Komenský Operational Programme, CZ.02.01.01/00/23_025/0008724. Lead institution University of Ostrava, partners the Institute of Philosophy and the Institute of Computer Science of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and the University of Hradec Králové. I lead the research strand on trust in AI-generated content in relation to disinformation.
2020–2023: A diagnostic system for measuring pupils' attitudes based on psychological distance and evolutionary algorithms
Technology Agency of the Czech Republic, ÉTA programme, TL03000240. Principal investigator. Co-investigator: Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, VSB – TUO.

Selected publications

Kundrát, J., Rečka, K., Hiris, E., Peša, R., Marmolejo-Ramos, F., Neusar, A. & Benešová, T. (2026). The arousal-space metaphor: evidence from spatial mapping in a 3D volumetric environment. Cognition and Emotion. DOI
Marmolejo-Ramos, F. et al. (2026). The vertical symphony: how pitch perception shapes spatial and affective mapping across different countries. Cognitive Processing, 27(3), 677–692. DOI
Mercado-Dias, L. R., Kong, Y., Kundrát, J. & Posada-Quintero, H. (2026). Continuous emotion recognition using EDA-graphs: a graph signal processing approach for affective dimension estimation. Applied Sciences, 16(7). DOI
Rojková, Z., Kundrát, J. & Ladecký, J. (2026). Exploration of the phenomena of resisting urges to self-harm in adolescence. Proceedings of the World Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities, 2(2), 38–49.
Marmolejo-Ramos, F. et al. (2025). Factors influencing trust in algorithmic decision-making: an indirect scenario-based experiment. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, 7. DOI
Marmolejo-Ramos, F., Bulut, O., … Kundrát, J. et al. (2025). From human artefact to machine output: automating the “art” of psychological measurement. Journal of Psychology and AI, 1(1). DOI
Kundrát, J., Rečka, K., Paulík, K. et al. (2023). Assessing attitudes indirectly through conceptual metaphors of size and distance in an interactive software. Metaphor and Symbol, 38(4), 329–345. DOI
Kundrát, J., Rečka, K., Litschmannová, M. et al. (2023). Metaphors of distance, size and temperature in sociometry of small social groups: a generalizability theory approach. Education and Information Technologies. DOI
Kundrát, J. & Rojková, Z. (2021). Psychological distance as a means of evaluation. New Ideas in Psychology, 63. DOI

A full list of publications is on my profile at the University of Ostrava. You can also find me on ORCID and ResearchGate.

Bio

I studied psychology at the Faculty of Arts, Palacký University in Olomouc, where I completed a Ph.D. in pedagogical psychology in 2017. Since 2016 I have been an assistant professor at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ostrava. My research interests are embodied cognition, the use of metaphor in psychodiagnostics, and human interaction with artificial intelligence.

Education

since 2024: Narratio institut, Prague
Five-year comprehensive psychotherapy training „Cestou systemických terapií“ (systemic therapies). 1,400 hours meeting the standards of the European Association for Psychotherapy, accredited by the Czech Association for Psychotherapy (ČAP).
2013–2017: Palacký University Olomouc, Faculty of Arts
Ph.D., pedagogical psychology
2012–2013: Moravian College, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA
Psychology, educational exchange, Merrill scholarship
2008–2013: Palacký University Olomouc, Faculty of Arts
Master's degree, psychology

Work experience

2024–2025: University of Connecticut, Department of Biomedical Engineering, USA
Fulbright–Masaryk scholarship. Five-month research stay.
since 2025: VSB – Technical University of Ostrava
Counselling Centre, external collaborator.
since 2025: Panevropská univerzita
University lecturer.
since 2016: University of Ostrava, Faculty of Arts
Department of Psychology, assistant professor.
since 2016: EduLudus, z.s., Ostrava
Co-founder, chairman until 2026, now vice-chairman. Leading a creative team focused on the design of educational programmes and games, building STEM activities for primary and secondary schools.
2014–2015: Palacký University Olomouc
Research in inquiry-based educational games.
2013–2014: Transport Research Centre, Brno
Design and pilot testing of edu-larps on traffic safety, accredited by the Czech Ministry of Transport.
2012–2015: Svět techniky Ostrava (Science and Technology Centre)
Design, pilot testing and delivery of STEM edu-larps and other educational programmes for primary and secondary schools.

Languages

Czech: native
English: C1
French: B1

Contact: josef.kundrat@gmail.com

My name is Josef Kundrát and I am a psychologist. I teach and do research at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ostrava.

In teaching I focus on educational psychology, cognitive psychology and methodology. I also run courses on preparing for highly competitive entrance exams, on academic procrastination, and on the use of AI in self-help.

In my research I am interested in how thinking, the body and space relate to one another, how metaphor can be put to work in psychodiagnostics, and what happens to people when they meet artificial intelligence.

When I find the time, I enjoy a whole range of things outside work: building construction kits for schoolchildren, filming videos, inventing games, or practising the piano.

You can write to me at josef.kundrat@gmail.com. If I am your teacher, please use the university channels instead.

On social media I only keep private profiles and I am not very active there. This website collects no data about you.