EXPRESS: Facial Occlusion with Medical Masks: Impacts on Emotion Recognition Rates for Emotion Types and Intensities
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-11-2024
Publication Title
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
DOI
10.1177/17470218241308569
Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, mask-wearing became prominent or required worldwide as a predominant preventative 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 behavioral/mental health providers became aware of the disruptions this generated in practitioner-patient relationships. The current set of studies utilized 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 multi-ethnic 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 behavioral/mental health practitioners are briefly described, with emphasis on strategies that can be taken to mitigate the impact in healthcare settings.
Recommended Citation
Wickline, Virginia B., A. Shea Hall, Ryan S. Lavrisa, Kaylee M. McCook, Michael Woodcock, Marco Bani, Selena Russo, Maria Grazia Strepparava, Renee K. Nowicki, Stephen Nowicki.
2024.
"EXPRESS: Facial Occlusion with Medical Masks: Impacts on Emotion Recognition Rates for Emotion Types and Intensities."
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Sage Journals.
doi: 10.1177/17470218241308569
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/psych-facpubs/150
Copyright
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Comments
Georgia Southern University faculty member, Virginia Wickline co-authored EXPRESS: Facial Occlusion with Medical Masks: Impacts on Emotion Recognition Rates for Emotion Types and Intensities.