dr. Gaëtan Mertens

Bio

I am an experimental psychologists interested in learning, memory, psychopathology, fear, and anxiety. To investigate these topics, I mainly conduct laboratory studies using the classical conditioning paradigm and psychophysiological measures (such as skin conductance and the startle reflex).

I obtained a PhD in psychology in 2016 from Ghent University, Belgium. Thereafter, I was a post-doctoral researcher for three and a half years at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Currently, I am a tenure-track assistant professor here at Tilburg University.

For more information regarding my scientific work, you can visit my Google Scholar or ResearchGate profile.

For more frequent updates, you can also follow me on Twitter. 

Courses

• Psychopathology
• Psychopathology
• Medical Psychology-3: Advanced Scientific Skills for the Medical Psychologist
• ReMa-IDA: Biological and Physiological Correlates of Individual Differences

Recent publications

1. Fear of COVID-19 - Data of a large longitudinal survey conducted betw…

   Mertens, G., Lodder, P., Smeets, T., & Duijndam, S. N. C. (2023). Fear of COVID-19: Data of a large longitudinal survey conducted between March 2020 and June 2021. Data in Brief, 48.

2. Pandemic panic? - Results of a 14 month longitudinal study on fear of…

   Mertens, G., Lodder, P., Smeets, T., & Duijndam, S. (2023). Pandemic panic? Results of a 14 month longitudinal study on fear of COVID-19. Journal of Affective Disorders, 322, 15-23.

3. Neural and psychophysiological markers of intolerance of uncertainty

   Morriss, J., Abend, R., Zika, O., Bradford, D. E., & Mertens, G. (2023). Neural and psychophysiological markers of intolerance of uncertainty. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 184, 94-99.

4. Preregistration - Definition, advantages, disadvantages, and how it c…

   Krypotos, A. M., Mertens, G., Klugkist, I., & Engelhard, I. M. (2022). Preregistration: Definition, advantages, disadvantages, and how it can help against questionable research practices. In W. O'Donohue, A. Masuda, & S. Lilienfeld (Eds.), Avoiding questionable research practices in applied psychology (pp. 343-357). Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

5. Corrigendum to: “Conceptual fear generalization gradients and their r…

   Mertens, G., Bouwman, V., & Engelhard, I. M. (2022). Corrigendum to: “Conceptual fear generalization gradients and their relationship with anxious traits: Results from a registered report": [Int. J. Psychophysiol. 170 (2021) 43–50]. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 176, 117-118.