Accuracy and Speed of Emotion Recognition With Face Masks

Authors

  • Arben Hysenaj
    Faculty of Social and Psychological Sciences, Heimerer College, Prishtina, Kosovo; Department of Clinical Psychology and Health Psychology, University of Bamberg, Germany
  • Mariel Leclère
    Faculty of Social and Psychological Sciences, Heimerer College, Prishtina, Kosovo; Department of Cognitive Psychology, Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France
  • Bernard Tahirbegolli
    Faculty of Social and Psychological Sciences, Heimerer College, Prishtina, Kosovo; National Sports Medicine Center, Prishtine, Kosovo
  • Dorentina Kuqi
    Faculty of Social and Psychological Sciences, Heimerer College, Prishtina, Kosovo
  • Albane Isufi
    Faculty of Social and Psychological Sciences, Heimerer College, Prishtina, Kosovo
  • Lulejete Prekazi
    Faculty of Social and Psychological Sciences, Heimerer College, Prishtina, Kosovo
  • Nevzat Shemsedini
    Faculty of Social and Psychological Sciences, Heimerer College, Prishtina, Kosovo
  • Driton Maljichi
    Institute for Sociological, Political and Juridical Research, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius, Skopje, North Macedonia
  • Rina Meha
    Faculty of Social and Psychological Sciences, Heimerer College, Prishtina, Kosovo; Institute of Sports and Preventive Medicine, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

Abstract

Wearing face masks is one of the important actions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among people around the world. Nevertheless, social interaction is limited via masks, and this impacts the accuracy and speed of emotional perception. In the present study, we assess the impact of mask-wearing on the accuracy and speed of emotion recognition. Fifty people (female n = 39, male n = 11) aged 19–28 participated in the study (M = 21.1 years). We used frontal photos of a Kosova woman who belonged to the same participants’ age group, with a grey background. Twelve different pictures were used that showed the emotional states of fear, joy, sadness, anger, neutrality, and disgust, in masked and unmasked conditions. The experiment was conducted in a controlled laboratory setting. Participants were faster for identifying emotions like joy (1.507 ms) and neutral (1.971 ms). The participants were more accurate (emotions identification) in unmasked faces (M = 85.7%) than in masked faces (M = 73.8%), F(1,98) = 20.73, MSE = 1027.66, p ≤ .001, partial η² = 0.17. Masks make confusion and reduce the accuracy and speediness of emotional detection. This may have a notable impact on social interactions among peoples.