Martial Mermillod

Université Grenoble Alpes · Department of Psychology

Models of emotion processing suggest that threat-related stimuli such as fearful faces can be detected based on the rapid extraction of low spatial frequencies. However, this remains debated as other models argue that the decoding of facial expressions occurs with a more flexible use of spatial frequencies. The purpose of this study was to clarify...

Healthy aging is associated with a heterogeneous decline across cognitive functions, typically observed in language performances. Examining resting-state fMRI and neuropsychological data from 628 healthy adults (age 18-88) from the CamCAN cohort, we performed state-of-theart graph theoretical analysis to uncover the neural mechanisms underlying thi...

Recent research suggests that autistic females may possess superior socio-cognitive abilities compared to autistic males, potentially contributing to underdiagnosis in females. However, it remains unclear whether differences arise from distinct neurophysiological functioning in autistic males and females. This study aimed to address this question b...

Artificial neural networks are prone to being fooled by carefully perturbed inputs which cause an egregious misclassification. These \textit{adversarial} attacks have been the focus of extensive research. Likewise, there has been an abundance of research in ways to detect and defend against them. We introduce a novel approach of detection and inter...

While being a key element of human-human communication, face emotion recognition is an important challenge for human-computer interactions. Feature extraction and classification methods have been developed during the past decades in order to propose increasingly accurate emotion recognition algorithms. Nevertheless, in a changing environment where...

The energy sharing used to heat water represents around 15% in European houses. To improve energy efficiency, smart heating systems could benefit from accurate domestic hot water consumption forecasting in order to adapt their heating profile. However, forecasting the hot water consumption for a single accommodation can be difficult since the data...

Background Despite the potential detrimental consequences for individuals’ health and discrimination from covid-19 symptoms, the outcomes have received little attention. This study examines the relationships between having personally experienced discrimination based on the symptoms of covid-19 (during the first wave of the pandemic), mental health,...

The energy sharing used to heat water represents around 15% in European houses. To improve energy efficiency, smart heating systems could benefit from accurate domestic hot water consumption forecasting in order to adapt their heating profile. However, forecasting the hot water consumption for a single accommodation can be difficult since the data...

Deep learning delivers remarkable results in a wide range of applications, but artificial neural networks still suffer from catastrophic forgetting of old knowledge as new knowledge is learned. Rehearsal methods overcome catastrophic forgetting by replaying an amount of previously learned data stored in dedicated memory buffers. Alternatively, pseu...

In this article, we tested the respective importance of low spatial frequencies (LSF) and high spatial frequencies (HSF) for conscious visual recognition of emotional stimuli by using an attentional blink paradigm. Thirty-eight participants were asked to identify and report two targets (happy faces) embedded in a rapid serial visual presentation of...

The world is still in the grip of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, with putative psychological consequences for healthcare workers (HCWs). Exploring the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during the first SARS-CoV-1 epidemic in 2003 may inform us of the long-term effects of the actual pande...

The recent focus on the bidirectional heart-brain interactions in psychoneurophysiological research has led to a variety of findings suggesting vagal activity is associated with cognition and, possibly, specifically with executive functioning. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to provide a better understanding of the association betwee...

Models of emotion processing suggest that threat-related stimuli such as fearful faces can be detected based on the rapid extraction of low spatial frequencies. However, this remains debated as other models argue that the decoding of facial expressions occurs with a more flexible use of spatial frequencies. The purpose of this study was to clarify...

Visual processing is thought to function in a coarse-to-fine manner. Low spatial frequencies (LSF), conveying coarse information, would be processed early to generate predictions. These LSF-based predictions would facilitate the further integration of high spatial frequencies (HSF), conveying fine details. The predictive role of LSF might be crucia...

Objectives Work-related stress is a major concern. One of the best performing models is the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) of Karasek, assessing job demand and job control using 18 items. However, the JCQ is long and complex. Visual Analogue Scales (VASs) are easy to use and quick to implement. VASs have been validated to assess pain and occupatio...

Background: Despite there is no recommendations for assessing symptoms of sick building syndrome, the use of visual analog scales (VAS) seems attractive and appropriate. We aimed to demonstrate the benefits of using VAS for evaluating subjective symptoms of sick building syndrome. Method: We compared an exposed group to a control group with a on...

Lay abstract: Flexibility difficulties in autism might be particularly common in complex situations, when shifts (i.e. the switch of attentional resources or strategy according to the situation) are unpredictable, implicit (i.e. not guided by explicit rules) and the stimuli are complex. We analyzed the data of 101 autistic and 145 non-autistic adu...

Coarse information of a visual stimulus is conveyed by Low Spatial Frequencies (LSF) and is thought to be rapidly extracted to generate predictions. This may guide fast recognition with the subsequent integration of fine information, conveyed by High Spatial Frequencies (HSF). In autism, emotional face recognition is challenging, and might be relat...

Considering the mixed nature of reports of flexibility difficulties in autism, we hypothesized that a task that more closely resembles the challenges faced in real life would help to assess these difficulties. Autistic and typically developing (TD) adults performed an online Emotional Shifting Task (EST), involving non-explicit unpredictable shifts...

The set of 30 stimulating commentaries on our target article helps to define the areas of our initial position that should be reiterated or else made clearer and, more importantly, the ways in which moderators of and extensions to the SIMS can be imagined. In our response, we divide the areas of discussion into (1) a clarification of our meaning of...

Recent application of theories of embodied or grounded cognition to the recognition and interpretation of facial expression of emotion has led to an explosion of research in psychology and the neurosciences. However, despite the accelerating number of reported findings, it remains unclear how the many component processes of emotion and their neural...

Previous studies have shown that the human visual system can detect a face and elicit a saccadic eye movement toward it very efficiently compared to other categories of visual stimuli. In the first experiment, we tested the influence of facial expressions on fast face detection using a saccadic choice task. Face-vehicle pairs were simultaneously pr...

The current experiment examined the effect of fair-related stimuli on attentional orienting and the role of cardiac vagal tone indexed by heart rate variability (HRV). Neutral faces were associated with fair and unfair offers in the Ultimatum Game (UG). After the UG, participants performed the spatial cueing task in which targets were preceded by f...

Right Wing Authoritarianism (i.e., RWA) is associated with enhanced conservatism and social prejudice. Because research linking RWA to attitudes is largely correlational (i.e., it provides control for neither RWA nor attitude learning), it is not clear how RWA relates to attitude learning dynamics. We addressed this question in 11 evaluative condit...

Adversarial examples mainly exploit changes to input pixels to which humans are not sensitive to, and arise from the fact that models make decisions based on uninterpretable features. Interestingly, cognitive science reports that the process of interpretability for human classification decision relies predominantly on low spatial frequency componen...

Aims: We conducted a cross-sectional study on healthcare workers from the University Hospital in Clermont-Ferrand. They received a self-report questionnaire consisting of the Maslach Burnout Inventory, Job Demand Control Support, Effort-Reward Imbalance model, and questions about ethical conflict in order to investigate on burnout. Results: We i...

Where does the remarkable human ability to quickly identify facial emotion come from? Coarse-to-Fine integration of visual information may play a critical role. Coarse information of a visual stimulus is conveyed by Low Spatial Frequencies (LSF) and is thought to be rapidly extracted to generate predictions. This may guide inhibition of irrelevant...

The facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) is a perceptual cue that affects the perception of psychological traits such as dominance. The current research examined whether the fWHR would impact the perception of dominance and emotional intensity when expressing emotions. In study one, we examined whether the emotional facial expressions (EFEs) modify...

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated a large number of publications in the medical and biological fields concerning the virus and its treatments, as well as in psychology, social sciences, and data sciences with regard to the spread of the virus. Surprisingly, far fewer neuroscientific articles have been published in this field of research and one m...

Despite the widely-known effects of air pollution, pollutants exposure surrounding pregnancy and the risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in newborns remains controversial. The purpose of our study was to carry out a systematic review and meta-analyses of the risk of ASD in newborns following air pollution exposure during the perinatal period (p...

Objectives : Past research has suggested that mindfulness training reduces automaticity while processing socio-emotional stimuli. The present study aimed to analyze how mindfulness practice may reduce the use of prior knowledge during the recognition of emotional facial expressions. Based on a predictive brain model, we hypothesized that mindfulne...

Within the abstract, the following sentence: “Using the fully adjusted estimates of risks, active commuting decreased all-cause mortality by 9% (95% confidence intervals 3–9%), and cardiovascular mortality by 15% (3–27%) (p < 0.001).” should be written as “Using the fully adjusted estimates of risks, active commuting decreased all-cause mortality b...

Background Sedentary behaviour is a major risk of mortality. However, data are contradictory regarding the effects of active commuting on mortality. Objectives To perform a systematic review and meta-analysis on the effects of active commuting on mortality. Methods The PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Science Direct databases were searched f...

Objectives: To study the prevalence of burnout among non-health care workers (NHCW), the risk and protective factors and to quantify the risk of burnout. Method: We conducted a cross-sectional study on the 3142 NHCW of the University Hospital of Clermont-Ferrand. They received a self-assessment questionnaire. Results: 437 (13.9%) NHCW complete...

Background and aims Shift work is common worldwide and linked to deleterious cardiovascular effects that might be underlined by dyslipidemia. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to determine the impact of shiftwork on dyslipidemia. Methods Searching in PubMed, Cochrane Library, Science Direct and Embase databases without languag...

Contexte Les médecins urgentistes sont une population à risque de stress chronique et d’épuisement professionnel, car leur travail est une interaction complexe entre le stress (imprévisibilité des situations stressantes, urgences vitales), le manque de sommeil et la fatigue due à de longues heures de travail et une vigilance soutenue. Le stress chr...

Introduction Nous avons cherché à réaliser une revue systématisée de la littérature et une méta-analyse sur le risque de suicide chez les professionnels de santé. Méthode Les recherches ont été effectuées dans les bases de données PubMed, Cochrane Library, Science Direct et Embase jusqu’en avril 2019 avec les mots-clés suivants: suicide* AND (« he...

Purpose of the study: Work addiction risk is a growing public health concern with potential deleterious health-related outcomes. Perception of work (job demands and job control) may play a major role in provoking the risk of work addiction in employees. We aimed to explore the link between work addiction risk and health-related outcomes using the f...

Contexte La sédentarité prolongée est associée à un risque accru de maladies chroniques. La population active est de plus en plus sédentaire au travail. Évaluer et mieux comprendre pour réduire la sédentarité au travail est un nouvel enjeu. De nombreuses méthodes subjectives (questionnaires) et objectives (surveillance à l’aide de dispositifs porta...

Défini pour la première fois dans les années 1970, par le docteur Herbert Freudenberger, le terme burnout se traduit par un état d’épuisement physique, émotionnel et mental qui résulte d’un investissement prolongé dans des situations de travail exigeantes sur le plan émotionnel. Ce syndrome est décrit comme un processus multidimensionnel comprenant...

Objectif Évaluer les effets du travail de près sur la myopie. Méthode Revue systématique et méta-analyse. Nous avons effectué des recherches dans les bases de données PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase et Science Direct pour trouver des études faisant état de la prévalence de la myopie au travail de près. La stratégie de recherche utilisée pour les...

En médecine du travail, les risques psychosociaux sont une préoccupation majeure. Un médecin du travail a besoin d’outils pour une évaluation objective du stress psychosocial. Ces outils pourraient être des questionnaires tels que l’échelle visuelle analogique du stress ou le questionnaire de contrôle de la demande par jod de Karasek, qui peuvent ê...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by difficulties in the social domain, but also by hyper- and hypo-reactivity. Atypical visual behaviours and processing have often been observed. Nevertheless, several similar signs are also identified in other clinical conditions including cerebral visual impairments (CVI). In the present study, we i...

Each year, over 15000 requests for mountain rescue are counted in France. Avalanche accidents represent 39\% of reports, and are therefore our focus in this study. Modelling the behaviour of mountain accident victims is useful to develop more accurate rescue and prevention tools. Concretely, we observe the interference of two heuristics (availabili...

STUDY OBJECTIVES To examine the benefits of napping during night shifts on cognitive performance. METHODS Medline, Cochrane Library, Science direct and Embase databases were searched up to 01/07/2019. Cognitive performance during night shifts, both before and following napping or under control conditions (no nap), in working-aged adults, were anal...

Introduction: Asbestos-related diseases and cancers represent a major public health concern. Objective: To conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to demonstrate that asbestos exposure increases the risk of prostate cancer. Methods: The PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, and ScienceDirect databases were searched using the keywords (prosta...

Studies on scene perception have shown that the rapid extraction of low spatial frequencies (LSF) allows a coarse parsing of the scene, prior to the analysis of high spatial frequencies (HSF) containing details. Many studies suggest that scene gist recognition can be achieved with only the low resolution of peripheral vision. Our study investigated...

Comment on “Maternal exposure to air pollution and risk of autism in children: A systematic review and meta-analysis”. Some points and/or limitations of their review and meta-analysis should be discussed.

Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) both predict generalized prejudice, dehumanization, intergroup discrimination, oppression, and violence, right-wing political party preference and generally punitive attitudes. Authoritarian attitudes have been theorized to involve maladaptive emotional, cognitive and social s...

Background Impairments in facial emotion recognition have been a hallmark of autism, which may contribute to the difficulty in social engagement and interpersonal interaction. Impaired facial emotion recognition in autism could be partly due to the asymmetrical perceptual bias to High Spatial Frequencies (HSF) information observed during visual per...

High Spatial Frequencies (HSF - conveying local information) may serve a critical role in visual consciousness. Despite an HSF bias during visual perception in autism, autistic individuals demonstrate impairments in face processing. Our aim was to investigate the respective role of HSF and Low Spatial Frequencies (LSF - conveying coarse information...

It is well known that expectations influence how we perceive the world. Yet the neural mechanisms underlying this process remain unclear. Studies about the effects of prior expectations have focused so far on artificial contingencies between simple neutral cues and events. Real-world expectations are however often generated from complex association...

Background: Medical-related professions are at high suicide risk. However, data are contradictory and comparisons were not made between gender, occupation and specialties, epochs of times. Thus, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis on suicide risk among health-care workers. Method: The PubMed, Cochrane Library, Science Direct and E...

Predictive models of visual recognition state that predictions based on the rapid processing of low spatial frequencies (LSF) may guide the subsequent processing of high spatial frequencies (HSF). While the HSF signal necessarily comes from central vision, most of the LSF signal comes from peripheral vision. The present study aimed at understanding...

Background Industrialization has led to more varied and attractive high-calorie foods. Health problems such as obesity and diabetes are partially attributed to eating-related self-regulation difficulties that may be caused by increasingly frequent cues for highly palatable foods. Research studies aim at understanding the factors underlying response...

Introduction Stress and obesity are two public health issues. The relationship between obesity and stress is biological through the actions of stress on the major hormones that regulate appetite (leptin and ghrelin). Many spa resorts in France specialise in the treatment of obesity, but no thermal spa currently proposes a specific programme to mana...

We attempted to highlight the respective importance of low spatial frequencies (LSFs) and high spatial frequencies (HSFs) in the emergence of visual consciousness by using an attentional blink paradigm in order to manipulate the conscious report of visual stimuli. Thirty-eight participants were asked to identify and report two targets (happy faces)...

In the literature, a well-known processing advantage for angry schematic faces was largely observed in the “Face in the Crowd” (FIC) visual search task. A debate about automaticity and guidance of these effects by emotional/perceptual features is still raging. In order to modify the emotional context, the present study used a state of expectation o...

The present study investigated the influence of the spatial-frequency content of emotional face stimuli on exogenous consciousness, by manipulating distractors over an attentional blink paradigm. During a rapid serial visual presentation, participants had to detect two targets of happy faces (T1 and T2) among angry faces distractors, which were eit...

Alexithymia is a multifaceted personality construct that encompasses difficulties in identifying and describing feelings along with an externally oriented cognitive style. The influence of alexithymia and arousal on the cognitive processing of emotion is now widely demonstrated. To test the joint influence of alexithymia and arousal on attentional...

Objective Work-related stress is a public health issue. Stress has multiple physical and psychological consequences, the most serious of which are increased mortality and cardiovascular morbidity. The ThermStress protocol was designed to offer a short residential thermal spa program for work-related stress prevention that is compatible with a profe...

Prolonged sedentary behavior (SB) is associated with increased risk for chronic conditions. A growing number of the workforce is employed in office setting with high occupational exposure to SB. There is a new focus in assessing, understanding and reducing SB in the workplace. There are many subjective (questionnaires) and objective methods (monito...

Predictive models of visual perception state that predictions based on the rapid processing of low spatial frequencies (LSF) may guide the subsequent processing of high spatial frequencies (HSF). While the HSF signal necessarily comes from central vision, most of the LSF signal come from peripheral vision. The present study aimed at understanding h...