From the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of surgical masks became widespread. However, they occlude an important part of the face and make it difficult to decode and interpret other people’s emotions. To clarify the effect of surgical masks on configural and featural processing, participants completed a facial emotion recognition task to discriminate between happy, sad, angry, and neutral faces. Stimuli included fully visible faces, masked faces, and a cropped photo of the eyes or mouth region. Occlusion due to the surgical mask affects emotion recognition for sadness, anger, and neutral faces, although no significative differences were found in happiness recognition. Our findings suggest that happiness is recognized predominantly via featural processing.

The Effect of Surgical Masks on the Featural and Configural Processing of Emotions / N. Maiorana, M. Dini, B. Poletti, S. Tagini, M.R. Reitano, G. Pravettoni, A. Priori, R. Ferrucci. - In: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH. - ISSN 1660-4601. - 19:4(2022 Feb 19), pp. 2420.1-2420.12. [10.3390/ijerph19042420]

The Effect of Surgical Masks on the Featural and Configural Processing of Emotions

N. Maiorana
Primo
;
M. Dini;B. Poletti;G. Pravettoni;A. Priori
Penultimo
;
R. Ferrucci
Ultimo
2022

Abstract

From the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of surgical masks became widespread. However, they occlude an important part of the face and make it difficult to decode and interpret other people’s emotions. To clarify the effect of surgical masks on configural and featural processing, participants completed a facial emotion recognition task to discriminate between happy, sad, angry, and neutral faces. Stimuli included fully visible faces, masked faces, and a cropped photo of the eyes or mouth region. Occlusion due to the surgical mask affects emotion recognition for sadness, anger, and neutral faces, although no significative differences were found in happiness recognition. Our findings suggest that happiness is recognized predominantly via featural processing.
Alexithymia; Configural processing; COVID-19; Emotion recognition; Face processing; Featural processing; Surgical mask;
Settore MED/26 - Neurologia
Settore M-PSI/01 - Psicologia Generale
Settore M-PSI/08 - Psicologia Clinica
19-feb-2022
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/916406
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