Wearing Face Masks Strongly Confuses Counterparts in Reading Emotions

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Claus-Christian Carbon¹ 

[1] Department of General Psychology and Methodology, University of Bamberg;Research Group EPÆG (Ergonomics

关键词: emotion;    face masks;    accuracy;    confusion;    COVID-19;    pandemic;    mouth;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.566886

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Wearing face masks is one of the essential means to prevent the transmission of certain respiratory diseases such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Although acceptance of such masks is increasing in the Western hemisphere, many people feel that social interaction is affected by wearing a mask. In the present experiment, we tested the impact of face masks on the readability of emotions. The participants ( N = 41, calculated by an a priori power test; random sample; healthy persons of different ages, 18–87 years) assessed the emotional expressions displayed by 12 different faces. Each face was randomly presented with six different expressions ( angry , disgusted , fearful , happy , neutral , and sad ) while being fully visible or partly covered by a face mask. Lower accuracy and lower confidence in one’s own assessment of the displayed emotions indicate that emotional reading was strongly irritated by the presence of a mask. We further detected specific confusion patterns, mostly pronounced in the case of misinterpreting disgusted faces as being angry plus assessing many other emotions (e.g., happy , sad , and angry ) as neutral. We discuss compensatory actions that can keep social interaction effective (e.g., body language, gesture, and verbal communication), even when relevant visual information is crucially reduced.

【 授权许可】

CC BY