ArticleCognitive research: principles and implications2022
Face masks impair facial emotion recognition and induce specific emotion confusions.
Article in Cognitive research: principles and implications, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 47 citations in OpenAlex.
- Do You Fail to Recognize Me with a Mask on? The Impact of Voice on Mask-Occluded Facial Identity Recognition.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Risks and benefits of face masks in children.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2026Review
- Effects of Interoceptive Awareness on Recognition of and Sensitivity to Emotions in Masked Facial Stimuli.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Emotion recognition with multiple physiological parameters based on ensemble learning.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Inferring social signals from the eyes in male schizophrenia.Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2024Article
- Social bonding through shared experiences: the role of emotional intensity.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- 'The mirror of the soul?' Inferring sadness in the eyes.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The social factors behind the mask: contextual effects on trait impressions from faces wearing a face mask.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2024Article
- The impact of face coverings on audio-visual contributions to communication with conversational speech.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2024Article
- Recognizing and Looking at Masked Emotional Faces in Alexithymia.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Accuracy and Speed of Emotion Recognition With Face Masks.Europe's journal of psychology · 2024Article
- Exploring the evocative qualities of masks' visual imagery and their associations with adversity and trauma.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Lesson learned from the COVID-19 pandemic: toddlers learn earlier to read emotions with face masks.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Effect of Face Masking on Transmission of SARS-CoV-2.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2024Article
- Investigating the impact of surgical masks on behavioral reactions to facial emotions in the COVID-19 era.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Effect of Surgical Masks and N95 Respirators on Anxiety.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2024Article
- On the brain struggles to recognize basic facial emotions with face masks: an fMRI study.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Emotions behind a mask: the value of disgust.Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2023Article
- A Medical Assistive Robot for Telehealth Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Development and Usability Study in an Isolation Ward.JMIR human factors · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
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.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.