Facial expressions are not our one and only source of information; body posture, body language and voice characteristic (Golan et al., 2006) the bodily context (Aviezer et al., 2008) the head orientation (Sauer et al., 2014 Social context (Mondloch, 2012) We can still effectively interact with one another even with constraints on the level of visual information. Emotional Reading was strongly irritated by the presence of a mask in an everyday life scene, we will typically show lower levels of attention impact of face masks on reading emotions could even be stronger

1. Wearing Face Masks Strongly Confuses
Counterparts in Reading Emotions
Claus-Christian Carbon
Department of General Psychology and Methodology, University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany, Research Group EPÆG
(Ergonomics, Psychological Aesthetics, Gestalt), Bamberg, Germany
Presented by Ceyda Güzelsevdi
Department of Psychology, Sabancı University, Istanbul, Turkey

2. Outline
Brief Lookback to COVID-19
Introduction
The New Regime: Masks
Facial Occlusion
•Readability of Emotions
•Methods & Procedure
•Results
Experiment
Discussion
References

3. In 2019
• Not long ago, our lives changed
for good with with the
emergence of SARS 2
Coronavirus
• Limiting social interaction and
information exchange

4. Introduction
• We are far from perfect in assessing
the emotional state;
• particularly when we depend on
facial information (Derntl et al.,
2009)
• without contextual knowledge
of the circumstances (Aviezer et
al., 2008)
• Not seeing the dynamic
progression of the expression,
static view (Bassili, 1979; Blais
et al., 2012, 2017)

5. The New Regime: Masks
• Masks affect Social Interaction
• Our faces > Identity
• Community Masks of COVID-19
cover 60-70% area of face needed
for
• Emotional Expression
• Emotion Reading
• Due to masks, we can’t tell:
• Reliability
• Attractiveness
• Age
• Sex
• Constraints on «Expression
Analysis¹» (Bruce & Young,
1986)
1 "Expression Analysis": reading other's emotional state

6. Facial Occlusion
Occlusion is not new in the Field
• «Bubbles»-paradigm (Gosselin & Schyns, 2001) allows
identification of visual information adressing specific parts
of face (e.g., Smith et al., 2005; Blais et al., 2012)
• Processing the mouth region is crucial to decrypt
facial expressions (Blais et al., 2012)
• Occlusion of Mouth (Blais et al., 2012) and Emotions
• Rectangular cardboard
• Happiness, Sadness, and Anger (Bassili, 1979)
• For impacts of specific types of occlusion on emotional
reading see,
• Top/bottom halves of faces (Bassili, 1979)
• Ecological valid items (niqab) (Fischer et al., 2012)
• Shawl/cap (Kret & de Gelder, 2012)
• Findings are contradictory (e.g., (Kret & de Gelder,
2012), (Kotsia et al., 2008), (Bombari et al., 2013),
(Eisenbarth & Alpers, 2011)

7. Experiment
Readability of Emotions
• 41 Participants
• 18-87 years (M = 26.7)
• 6 Emotional Expressions
• Anger
• Disgust
• Fear
• Happiness
• Neutral
• Sadness
• 12 Different Causasian Faces² of 3 age
groups: young, medium = middle-aged,
elderly (MPI FACES database)
• Fully Visible
• Partially covered by a face mask
2 These faces were used as a baseline and later were applied face
masks by means of Photoshop, adding shadow and other visual effects.

8. Experiment
Methods & Procedure
• Conducted through SoSciSurvey online platform (15-
18 May 2020)
• Each person was randomly shown 6 different pictures
of 6 different emotional state (anger, disgust, fear,
happiness, neutral, and sadness) from the collection
of 72 pictures from MPI FACES database
• Scale (1-7) of Personal Confidence
• No time limit for response
• Lasted 20-25 min
• Stimulli
• 2 (face sex) × 3 (face age group) × 2
(individuals) × 6 (emotions) × 2 (no face mask
vs. face mask) = 144 face stimuli

9. Experiment
Results
• Accuracy of identifying facial emotions wihout masks (M = 89.5%
(chance rate = 16.7%) – no participant below 76.4%
• Outperformed previous studies (e.g., (Aviezer et al., 2008), Derntl
et al., 2009)
• Masks led to
• Decrease in accuracy
• Confusion of emotions

10. Experiment
Results
• Many emotional states (e.g., happy, sad, and
angry) misinterpreted as neutral
• genuine emotional state was not perceived
anymore.
• Other emotions (e.g., disgust) confused with
anger
• was found in more than one third of all
assessments of disgusted faces wearing a
mask
• Literature indicates there are confusions based
on other factors
• Adults confuse basic emotions (disgust,
happiness, and fear), and even have
intense problems in recognizing other
basic emotions such as anger and sadness
(Ruffman et al., 2008).

11. Discussion
• Facial expressions are not our one and only
source of information;
• body posture, body language and voice
characteristic (Golan et al., 2006)
• the bodily context (Aviezer et al., 2008)
• the head orientation (Sauer et al., 2014
• Social context (Mondloch, 2012)
• We can still effectively interact with one another
even with constraints on the level of visual
information.
• Emotional Reading was strongly irritated by the
presence of a mask
• in an everyday life scene, we will typically show
lower levels of attention
• impact of face masks on reading emotions could
even be stronger

12. References
• Carbon C-C (2020) Wearing Face Masks Strongly Confuses Counterparts in Reading Emotions. Front.
Psychol. 11:566886. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.566886