Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
The State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2022 Apr 8;7(1):32. doi: 10.1186/s41235-022-00382-w.
We examined how mask use affects performance and eye movements in face recognition and whether strategy change reflected in eye movements is associated with performance change. Eighty-eight participants performed face recognition with masked faces either during learning only, during recognition only, or during both learning and recognition. As compared with the baseline condition where faces were unmasked during both learning and recognition, participants had impaired performance in all three scenarios, with larger impairment when mask conditions during learning and recognition did not match. When recognizing unmasked faces, whether the faces were learned with or without a mask on did not change eye movement behavior. Nevertheless, when recognizing unmasked faces that were learned with a mask on, participants who adopted more eyes-focused patterns had less performance impairment as compared with the baseline condition. When recognizing masked faces, participants had more eyes-focused patterns and more consistent gaze transition behavior than recognizing unmasked faces regardless of whether the faces were learned with or without a mask on. Nevertheless, when recognizing masked faces that were learned without a mask, participants whose gaze transition behavior was more consistent had less performance impairment as compared with the baseline condition. Thus, although eye movements during recognition were mainly driven by the mask condition during recognition but not that during learning, those who adjusted their strategy according to the mask condition difference between learning and recognition had better performance. This finding has important implications for identifying populations vulnerable to the impact of mask use and potential remedial strategies.
我们研究了口罩使用如何影响人脸识别中的表现和眼动，以及眼动中的策略变化是否与表现变化相关。88 名参与者在学习时、识别时或学习和识别时都戴着面具进行人脸识别。与学习和识别时面具都不遮挡的基线条件相比，所有三种情况下参与者的表现都受到了损害，当学习和识别时的面具条件不匹配时，损害更大。当识别未戴口罩的面孔时，无论面孔是否戴着口罩进行学习，眼动行为都不会改变。然而，当识别戴着口罩学习的未戴口罩的面孔时，与基线条件相比，采用更多眼睛聚焦模式的参与者表现受损程度较小。当识别未戴口罩的面孔时，无论面孔是否戴着口罩进行学习，参与者的眼睛聚焦模式和注视转移行为都比识别未戴口罩的面孔更频繁和一致。然而，当识别未戴口罩学习的面具面孔时，与基线条件相比，注视转移行为更一致的参与者表现受损程度较小。因此，尽管识别过程中的眼动主要受识别过程中面具条件的驱动，而不是学习过程中面具条件的驱动，但那些根据学习和识别之间的面具条件差异调整策略的人表现更好。这一发现对识别易受口罩使用影响的人群和潜在补救策略具有重要意义。
