Carbon Claus-Christian
Department of General Psychology and Methodology, University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany.
Research Group EPÆG (Ergonomics, Psychological Aesthetics, Gestalt), Bamberg, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2020 Sep 25;11:566886. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.566886. eCollection 2020.
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 ( = 41, calculated by an 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 (, , , , , and ) 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., , , and ) 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.
佩戴口罩是预防某些呼吸道疾病（如2019冠状病毒病，即COVID-19）传播的重要手段之一。尽管在西半球，人们对这类口罩的接受度在不断提高，但许多人觉得戴口罩会影响社交互动。在本实验中，我们测试了口罩对情绪可读性的影响。参与者（通过功效检验计算得出n = 41；随机样本；年龄在18至87岁之间的不同年龄段健康人群）评估了12张不同面孔所展现出的情绪表达。每张面孔在完全可见或部分被口罩遮住的情况下，会随机呈现六种不同的表情（愤怒、厌恶、恐惧、快乐、悲伤和惊讶）。对所展示情绪的自我评估准确性降低以及信心下降表明，口罩的存在严重干扰了情绪解读。我们还发现了特定的混淆模式，最明显的情况是将厌恶的面孔误判为愤怒，以及将许多其他情绪（如快乐、悲伤和惊讶）误判为中性。我们讨论了即使在关键视觉信息大幅减少的情况下，仍能保持社交互动有效的补偿行为（如肢体语言、手势和言语交流）。
