Masking Emotions: Face Masks Impair How We Read Emotions

Frontiers in Psychology

Lucia Schiatti¹  Maria Bianca Amadeo¹  Monica Gori² 

[1] Unit for Visually Impaired People (U-VIP), Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova, Italy;null;

关键词: COVID-19;    emotion inference;    facial configuration;    social development;    face mask;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2021.669432

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

To date, COVID-19 has spread across the world, changing our way of life and forcing us to wear face masks. This report demonstrates that face masks influence the human ability to infer emotions by observing facial configurations. Specifically, a mask obstructing a face limits the ability of people of all ages to infer emotions expressed by facial features, but the difficulties associated with the mask’s use are significantly pronounced in children aged between 3 and 5 years old. These findings are of essential importance, as they suggest that we live in a time that may potentially affect the development of social and emotion reasoning, and young children’s future social abilities should be monitored to assess the true impact of the use of masks.

【 授权许可】

CC BY