TY - JOUR
T1 - Facial occlusion with medical masks
T2 - Impacts on emotion recognition rates for emotion types and intensities
AU - Wickline, Virginia B.
AU - Hall, A. Shea
AU - Lavrisa, Ryan
AU - McCook, Kaylee
AU - Woodcock, Michael
AU - Bani, Marco
AU - Strepparava, Maria G.
AU - Russo, Selena
AU - Nowicki, Stephen
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Experimental Psychology Society 2025.
PY - 2025
Y1 - 2025
N2 - During the COVID-19 pandemic, mask-wearing became prominent or required worldwide as a predominant preventive strategy up until and even after vaccines became widely available. Because masks make emotion recognition more challenging for both the face and voice, medical and behavioural/mental health providers became aware of the disruptions this generated in practitioner–patient relationships. The current set of studies utilised two adult samples, first from United States college students (N = 516) and second from the U.S. American general public (N = 115), to document the severity and types of errors in facial expression recognition that were exacerbated by medical mask occlusion. Using a within-subjects experimental design and a well-validated test of emotion recognition that incorporated multiethnic adult facial stimuli, both studies found that happy, sad, and angry faces were significantly more difficult to interpret with masks than without, with lesser effects for fear. Both high- and low-intensity emotions were more difficult to interpret with masks, with a greater relative change for high-intensity emotions. The implications of these findings for medical and behavioural/mental health practitioners are briefly described, with emphasis on strategies that can be taken to mitigate the impact in health care settings.
AB - During the COVID-19 pandemic, mask-wearing became prominent or required worldwide as a predominant preventive strategy up until and even after vaccines became widely available. Because masks make emotion recognition more challenging for both the face and voice, medical and behavioural/mental health providers became aware of the disruptions this generated in practitioner–patient relationships. The current set of studies utilised two adult samples, first from United States college students (N = 516) and second from the U.S. American general public (N = 115), to document the severity and types of errors in facial expression recognition that were exacerbated by medical mask occlusion. Using a within-subjects experimental design and a well-validated test of emotion recognition that incorporated multiethnic adult facial stimuli, both studies found that happy, sad, and angry faces were significantly more difficult to interpret with masks than without, with lesser effects for fear. Both high- and low-intensity emotions were more difficult to interpret with masks, with a greater relative change for high-intensity emotions. The implications of these findings for medical and behavioural/mental health practitioners are briefly described, with emphasis on strategies that can be taken to mitigate the impact in health care settings.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Emotion recognition
KW - facial occlusion
KW - mask attitude scale
KW - masking
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85214425893&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/17470218241308569
DO - 10.1177/17470218241308569
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85214425893
SN - 1747-0218
JO - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
JF - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
ER -