Skip to main content
Search
Search
    Quick Search anywhere
    Quick search in Citations
Advanced Search
Skip main navigationClose Drawer MenuOpen Drawer Menu
Previous article
Next article
Original Article

Face Masks Impair Basic Emotion Recognition

Group Effects and Individual Variability

Published Online:February 21, 2022https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000470

Abstract

Abstract. With the widespread adoption of masks, there is a need for understanding how facial obstruction affects emotion recognition. We asked 120 participants to identify emotions from faces with and without masks. We also examined if recognition performance was related to autistic traits and personality. Masks impacted recognition of expressions with diagnostic lower face features the most and those with diagnostic upper face features the least. Persons with higher autistic traits were worse at identifying unmasked expressions, while persons with lower extraversion and higher agreeableness were better at recognizing masked expressions. These results show that different features play different roles in emotion recognition and suggest that obscuring features affects social communication differently as a function of autistic traits and personality.

References

  • Addington, J., Saeedi, H., & Addington, D. (2006). Facial affect recognition: A mediator between cognitive and social functioning in psychosis? Schizophrenia Research, 85(1–3), 142–150. 10.1016/j.schres.2006.03.028 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Austin, E. J. (2005). Personality correlates of the broader autism phenotype as assessed by the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) Personality and Individual Differences, 38(2), 451-460. 10.1016/j.paid.2004.04.022 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Bargh, J. A., Lombardi, W. J., & Higgins, E. T. (1988). Automaticity of chronically accessible constructs in person × situation effects on person perception: It's just a matter of time. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55(4), 599–605. 10.1037/0022-3514.55.4.599 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Skinner, R., Martin, J., & Clubley, E. (2001). The autism-spectrum quotient (AQ): Evidence from Asperger syndrome/high-functioning autism, males and females, scientists and mathematicians. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 31(1), 5–17. 10.1023/a:1005653411471 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Barrett, L. F., Mesquita, B., & Gendron, M. (2011). Context in emotion perception. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(5), 286–290. 10.1177/0963721411422522 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Benet-Martínez, V., & John, O. R. (1998). Los Cinco Grandes across cultures and ethnic groups: Multitrait–multimethod analyses of the big five in Spanish and English. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(3), 729–750. 10.1037/0022-3514.75.3.729 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Black, M. H., Chen, N. T. M., Iyer, K. K., Lipp, O. V., Bölte, S., Falkmer, M., Tan, T., & Girdler, S. (2017). Mechanisms of facial emotion recognition in autism spectrum disorders: Insights from eye tracking and electroencephalography. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 80, 488–515. 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.06.016 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Blais, C., Roy, C., Fiset, D., Arguin, M., & Gosselin, F. (2012). The eyes are not the window to basic emotions. Neuropsychologia, 50(12), 2830–2838. 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.08.010 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Bombari, D., Schmid, P. C., Schmid Mast, M., Birri, S., Mast, F. W., & Lobmaier, J. S. (2013). Emotion recognition: The role of featural and configural face information. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 66(12), 2426–2442. 10.1080/17470218.2013.789065 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Broz, F., Lehmann, H., Nehaniv, C. L., & Dautenhahn, K. (2012). Mutual gaze, personality, and familiarity: Dual eye-tracking during conversation. In IEEE (Ed.), 2012 IEEE RO-MAN: The 21st IEEE international symposium on robot and human interactive communication (pp. 858–864). IEEE. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Calder, A. J., Young, A. W., Keane, J., & Dean, M. (2000). Configural information in facial expression perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 26(2), 527–551. 10.1037/0096-1523.26.2.527 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Calvo, M. G., & Nummenmaa, L. (2016). Perceptual and affective mechanisms in facial expression recognition: An integrative review. Cognition and Emotion, 30(6), 1081–1106. 10.1080/02699931.2015.1049124 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Carbon, C. C. (2020). Wearing face masks strongly confuses counterparts in reading emotions. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 2526. 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.566886 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Charness, G., Gneezy, U., & Kuhn, M. A. (2012). Experimental methods: Between-subject and within-subject design. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 81(1), 1–8. 10.1257/jep.26.3.157 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Clements, C. C., Zoltowski, A. R., Yankowitz, L. D., Yerys, B. E., Schultz, R. T., & Herrington, J. D. (2018). Evaluation of the social motivation hypothesis of autism: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Psychiatry, 75(8), 797–808. 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2018.1100 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Corden, B., Chilvers, R., & Skuse, D. (2008). Avoidance of emotionally arousing stimuli predicts social–perceptual impairment in Asperger's syndrome. Neuropsychologia 46(1), 137–147. 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.08.005 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Cunningham, M. R. (1977). Personality and the structure of the nonverbal communication of emotion. Journal of Personality, 45(4), 564–584. 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1977.tb00172.x. First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Decety, J., & Fotopoulou, A. (2015). Why empathy has a beneficial impact on others in medicine: Unifying theories. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 8, 457. 10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00457 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Eikenberry, S. E., Mancuso, M., Iboi, E., Phan, T., Eikenberry, K., Kuang, Y., Kostelich, E., & Gumel, A. B. (2020). To mask or not to mask: Modeling the potential for face mask use by the general public to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic. Infectious Disease Modelling, 5, 293–308. 10.1016/j.idm.2020.04.001 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Ekman, P. (1999). Basic emotions. Handbook of Cognition and Emotion, 98(45–60), 16. 10.1002/0470013494.ch3 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Ekman, P., Davidson, R. J., & Friesen, W. V. (1990). The Duchenne smile: Emotional expression and brain physiology: II. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(2), 342–353. 10.1037/0022-3514.58.2.342 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Ekman, P., Freisen, W. V., & Ancoli, S. (1980). Facial signs of emotional experience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(6), 1125–1134. 10.1037/h0077722 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Ellingsen, E. F., Drevsjø, S., Volden, F., & Watten, R. G. (2019). Extraversion and focus of attention on facial emotions: An experimental eye-tracking study. Current Issues in Personality Psychology, 7(2), 91–97. 10.5114/cipp.2019.85413 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Fischer, A. H., Gillebaart, M., Rotteveel, M., Becker, D., & Vliek, M. (2012). Veiled emotions: The effect of covered faces on emotion perception and attitudes. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3(3), 266–273. 10.1177/1948550611418534 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Finset, A., & Mjaaland, T. A. (2009). The medical consultation viewed as a value chain: a neurobehavioral approach to emotion regulation in doctor–patient interaction. Patient education and counseling, 74(3), 323–330. 10.1016/j.pec.2008.12.007 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Furnes, D., Berg, H., Mitchell, R. M., & Paulmann, S. (2019). Exploring the effects of personality traits on the perception of emotions from prosody. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 184. 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00184 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Goeleven, E., De Raedt, R., Leyman, L., & Verschuere, B. (2008). The Karolinska directed emotional faces: A validation study. Cognition and Emotion, 22(6), 1094–1118. 10.1080/02699930701626582 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Gosselin, P., Perron, M., & Beaupré, M. (2010). The voluntary control of facial action units in adults. Emotion, 10(2), 266–271. 10.1037/a0017748 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Graziano, W. G., & Tobin, R. M. (2009). Agreeableness. In M. R. LearyR. H. Hoyle (Eds.), Handbook of individual differences in social behavior (pp. 46–61). The Guilford Press. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Grundmann, F., Epstude, K., & Scheibe, S. (2021). Face masks reduce emotion-recognition accuracy and perceived closeness. PloS One, 16(4), e0249792. 10.1371/journal.pone.0249792 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Hareli, S., David, S., & Hess, U. (2013). Competent and warm but unemotional: The influence of occupational stereotypes on the attribution of emotions. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 37(4), 307–317. 10.1007/s10919-013-0157-x First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Hayward, D. A., Fenerci, C., & Ristic, J. (2018). An investigation of global-local processing bias in a large sample of typical individuals varying in autism traits. Consciousness and Cognition, 65, 271–279. 10.1016/j.concog.2018.09.002 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Hoppe, S., Loetscher, T., Morey, S. A., & Bulling, A. (2018). Eye movements during everyday behavior predict personality traits. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12, 105. 10.3389/fnhum.2018.00105 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Hugenberg, K., Wilson, J. P. (2013). Faces are central to social cognition. In Carlston, D. (Ed.), Handbook of social cognition (pp. 167-193). Oxford University Press. 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199730018.013.0009 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Human, L. J., Biesanz, J. C., Finseth, S. M., Pierce, B., & Le, M. (2014). To thine own self be true: Psychological adjustment promotes judgeability via personality-behavior congruence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(2), 286–303. 10.1037/a0034860 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • John, O. P., & Srivastava, S. (1999). The Big Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In L. A. PervinO. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (2nd ed., pp. 102–138). Guilford Press. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Kotsia, I., Buciu, I., & Pitas, I. (2008). An analysis of facial expression recognition under partial facial image occlusion. Image and Vision Computing, 26(7), 1052–1067. 10.1016/j.imavis.2007.11.004 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Kraus, M. W., Côté, S., & Keltner, D. (2010). Social class, contextualism, and empathic accuracy. Psychological Science, 21(11), 1716–1723. 10.1177/0956797610387613 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Kret, M. E., & De Gelder, B. (2012). Islamic headdress influences how emotion is recognized from the eyes. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 110. 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00110 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Kret, M. E., & Fischer, A. H. (2018). Recognition of facial expressions is moderated by Islamic cues. Cognition and Emotion, 32(3), 623–631. 10.1080/02699931.2017.1330253 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Leppänen, J. M., & Hietanen, J. K. (2001). Emotion recognition and social adjustment in school-aged girls and boys. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 42(5), 429–435. 10.1111/1467-9450.00255 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Leung, N. H. L., Chu, D. K. W., Shiu, E. Y. C., Chan, K.-H., McDevitt, J. J., Hau, B. J. P., Yen, H.-L., Li, Y., Ip, D. K. M., Peiris, J. S. M., Seto, W.-H., Leung, G. M., Milton, D. K., & Cowling, B. J. (2020). Respiratory virus shedding in exhaled breath and efficacy of face masks. Nature Medicine, 26(5), 676–680. 10.1038/s41591-020-0843-2 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Lundqvist, D., Flykt, A., & Öhman, A. (1998). The Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces - KDEF, CD ROM from Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Psychology Section. Karolinska Institutet. ISBN 91-630-7164-9. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Madipakkam, A. R., Rothkirch, M., Dziobek, I., & Sterzer, P. (2017). Unconscious avoidance of eye contact in autism spectrum disorder. Scientific Reports, 7(1), 1–6. 10.1038/s41598-017-13945-5 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Matsumoto, D., LeRoux, J., Wilson‐Cohn, C., Raroque, J., Kooken, K., Ekman, P., Yrizarry, N., Loewinger, S., Uchida, H., Yee, A., Amo, L., & Goh, A. (2000). A new test to measure emotion recognition ability: Matsumoto and Ekman's Japanese and Caucasian Brief Affect Recognition Test (JACBART). Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 24(3), 179–209. 10.1023/a:1006668120583 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • McCrackin, S. D., & Itier, R. J. (2019). Individual differences in the emotional modulation of gaze-cuing. Cognition and Emotion, 33(4), 768–800. 10.1080/02699931.2018.1495618 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • McCrackin, S., Ristic, J., Capozzi, F., & Mayrand, F. (2022). Dataset and analytic SPSS code for “Face masks impair basic emotion recognition: Group effects and individual variability.” https://osf.io/hxpcu/?view_only=4488e70661384fa2a101a71d2720ff53 First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • McKenzie, K., Murray, A. L., Wilkinson, A., Murray, G. C., Metcalfe, D., O'Donnell, M., & McCarty, K. (2018). The relations between processing style, autistic-like traits, and emotion recognition in individuals with and without autism spectrum disorder. Personality and Individual Differences, 120, 1–6. 10.1016/j.paid.2017.08.007 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Mheidly, N., Fares, M. Y., Zalzale, H., & Fares, J. (2020). Effect of face masks on interpersonal communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Public Health, 8, 898. 10.3389/fpubh.2020.582191 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Mill, A., Allik, J., Realo, A., & Valk, R. (2009). Age-related differences in emotion recognition ability: A cross-sectional study. Emotion, 9(5), 619–630. 10.1037/a0016562 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Murray, A. L., Booth, T., McKenzie, K., & Kuenssberg, R. (2016). What range of trait levels can the autism-spectrum quotient (AQ) measure reliably? An item response theory analysis. Psychological Assessment, 28(6), 673–683. 10.1037/pas0000215 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Navon, D. (1977). Forest before trees: The precedence of global features in visual perception. Cognitive Psychology, 9(3), 353–383. 10.1016/0010-0285(77)90012-3 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Neath, K. (2012). The use of facial features in facial expression discrimination [Master's thesis]. University of Waterloo. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Neumann, D., Spezio, M. L., Piven, J., & Adolphs, R. (2006). Looking you in the mouth: Abnormal gaze in autism resulting from impaired top-down modulation of visual attention. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 1(3), 194–202. 10.1093/scan/nsl030 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Nieuwenhuis, S., Forstmann, B. U., & Wagenmakers, E.-J. (2011). Erroneous analyses of interactions in neuroscience: A problem of significance. Nature Neuroscience, 14(9), 1105–1107. 10.1038/nn.2886 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Prather, K. A., Wang, C. C., & Schooley, R. T. (2020). Reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Science, 368(6498), 1422–1424. 10.1126/science.abc6197 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Rauthmann, J. F., Seubert, C. T., Sachse, P., & Furtner, M. R. (2012). Eyes as windows to the soul: Gazing behavior is related to personality. Journal of Research in Personality, 46(2), 147–156. 10.1016/j.jrp.2011.12.010 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Roy-Charland, A., Perron, M., Beaudry, O., & Eady, K. (2014). Confusion of fear and surprise: A test of the perceptual-attentional limitation hypothesis with eye movement monitoring. Cognition and Emotion, 28(7), 1214–1222. 10.1080/02699931.2013.878687 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Scherer, K. R., & Scherer, U. (2011). Assessing the ability to recognize facial and vocal expressions of emotion: Construction and validation of the Emotion Recognition Index. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 35(4), 305–326. 10.1007/s10919-011-0115-4 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Smillie, L. D., Cooper, A. J., Wilt, J., & Revelle, W. (2012). Do extraverts get more bang for the buck? Refining the affective-reactivity hypothesis of extraversion. Journal of Personality Social Psychology, 103(2), 306–326. 10.1037/a0028372 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Smith, M. L., Cottrell, G. W., Gosselin, F., & Schyns, P. G. (2005). Transmitting and decoding facial expressions. Psychological Science, 16(3), 184–189. 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.00801.x First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Spezio, M. L., Adolphs, R., Hurley, R. S. E., & Piven, J. (2007a). Abnormal use of facial information in high-functioning autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37(5), 929–939. 10.1007/s10803-006-0232-9 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Spezio, M. L., Adolphs, R., Hurley, R. S. E., & Piven, J. (2007b). Analysis of face gaze in autism using “bubbles”. Neuropsychologia, 45(1), 144–151. 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2006.04.027 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Stevenson, J. L., & Hart, K. R. (2017). Psychometric properties of the autism-spectrum quotient for assessing low and high levels of autistic traits in college students. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 47(6), 1838–1853. 10.1007/s10803-017-3109-1 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Sullivan, S., Ruffman, T., & Hutton, S. B. (2007). Age differences in emotion recognition skills and the visual scanning of emotion faces. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 62(1), P53–P60. 10.1093/geronb/62.1.p53 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Virtanen, M., Singh-Manoux, A., Batty, G. D., Ebmeier, K. P., Jokela, M., Harmer, C. J., & Kivimäki, M. (2017). The level of cognitive function and recognition of emotions in older adults. PLoS One, 12(10), e0185513. 10.1371/journal.pone.0185513 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Wagner, H. L. (1993). On measuring performance in category judgment studies of nonverbal behavior. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 17(1), 3–28. 10.1007/bf00987006 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Wakabayashi, A., Baron-Cohen, S., & Wheelwright, S. (2006). Are autistic traits an independent personality dimension? A study of the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) and the NEO-PI-R. Personality and Individual Differences, 41(5), 873–883. 10.1016/j.paid.2006.04.003 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Wang, Y., Thomas, J., Weissgerber, S. C., Kazemini, S., Ul-Haq, I., & Quadflieg, S. (2015). The headscarf effect revisited: Further evidence for a culture-based internal face processing advantage. Perception, 44(3), 328–336. 10.1068/p7940 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Wegrzyn, M., Vogt, M., Kireclioglu, B., Schneider, J., & Kissler, J. (2017). Mapping the emotional face. How individual face parts contribute to successful emotion recognition. PLoS One, 12(5), e0177239. 10.1371/journal.pone.0177239 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • White, S. W., Keonig, K., & Scahill, L. (2007). Social skills development in children with autism spectrum disorders: A review of the intervention research. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37(10), 1858–1868. 10.1007/s10803-006-0320-x First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar