Behind the mask: What the eyes can’t tell: Facial emotion recognition in a sample of Italian health care students

Marco Bani, Selena Russo, Stefano Ardenghi, Giulia Rampoldi, Virginia Wickline, Stephen Nowicki, Maria Grazia Strepparava

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Wearing a facemask remains a pivotal strategy to prevent severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection even after vaccination, but one of the possible costs of this protection is that it may interfere with the ability to read emotion in facial expressions. We explored the extent to which it may be more difficult for participants to read emotions in faces when faces are covered with masks than when they are not, and whether participants’ empathy, attachment style, and patient-centred orientation would affect their performance. Medical and nursing students (N = 429) were administered either a masked or unmasked set of 24 adult faces depicting anger, sadness, fear, or happiness. Participants also completed self-report measures of empathy, patient-centredness, and attachment style. As predicted, participants made more errors to the masked than the unmasked faces with the exception of the identification of fear. Of note, when participants missed happiness, they were most likely to see it as sadness, and when they missed anger, they were most likely to see it as happiness. A multiple linear regression analysis showed that more errors identifying emotions in faces was associated with faces being masked as opposed to unmasked, lower scores on the empathy fantasy scale, and higher scores on the fearful attachment style. The findings suggest that wearing facemasks is associated with a variety of negative outcomes that might interfere with the building of positive relationships between health care workers and patients. Those who teach student health care workers would benefit from bringing this finding into their curriculum and training.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1430-1442
Number of pages13
JournalQuarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
Volume77
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2024

Keywords

  • DANVA
  • Facial emotion recognition
  • attachment style
  • empathy
  • masks
  • medical and nursing students
  • patient-centredness

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