Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, PO Box 9104, 6500 HE, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2022 Sep 5;7(1):83. doi: 10.1186/s41235-022-00430-5.
Face masks are now worn frequently to reduce the spreading of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Their health benefits are undisputable, but covering the lower half of one's face also makes it harder for others to recognize facial expressions of emotions. Three experiments were conducted to determine how strongly the recognition of different facial expressions is impaired by masks, and which emotions are confused with each other. In each experiment, participants had to recognize facial expressions of happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, and disgust, as well as a neutral expression, displayed by male and female actors of the Radboud Faces Database. On half of the 168 trials, the lower part of the face was covered by a face mask. In all experiments, facial emotion recognition (FER) was about 20% worse for masked faces than for unmasked ones (68% correct vs. 88%). The impairment was largest for disgust, followed by fear, surprise, sadness, and happiness. It was not significant for anger and the neutral expression. As predicted, participants frequently confused emotions that share activation of the visible muscles in the upper half of the face. In addition, they displayed response biases in these confusions: They frequently misinterpreted disgust as anger, fear as surprise, and sadness as neutral, whereas the opposite confusions were less frequent. We conclude that face masks do indeed cause a marked impairment of FER and that a person perceived as angry, surprised, or neutral may actually be disgusted, fearful, or sad, respectively. This may lead to misunderstandings, confusions, and inadequate reactions by the perceivers.
口罩现在被频繁使用以减少 SARS-CoV-2 病毒的传播。它们对健康的益处是毋庸置疑的，但遮住脸的下半部分也使得其他人更难识别面部表情所表达的情绪。进行了三项实验，以确定口罩对面部表情识别的影响程度以及哪些情绪会相互混淆。在每个实验中，参与者都必须识别由男性和女性演员展示的 Radboud Faces Database 中的快乐、悲伤、愤怒、惊讶、恐惧和厌恶等面部表情以及中性表情。在 168 次试验中的一半中，演员的下半张脸被口罩遮住。在所有实验中，与未戴口罩的情况相比，戴口罩时的面部表情识别（FER）要差约 20%（正确识别率为 68%，而非口罩时为 88%）。口罩对厌恶、恐惧、惊讶、悲伤和幸福的影响最大，而对愤怒和中性表情则没有显著影响。正如预测的那样，参与者经常混淆那些共享上半张脸可见肌肉激活的情绪。此外，他们在这些混淆中表现出反应偏差：他们经常将厌恶误认为愤怒，将恐惧误认为惊讶，将悲伤误认为中性，而相反的混淆则不那么频繁。我们得出结论，口罩确实会对面部表情识别造成明显的损害，一个被认为生气、惊讶或中立的人可能实际上是感到厌恶、恐惧或悲伤。这可能导致感知者产生误解、混淆和不适当的反应。
