Face Masks Use and Face Perception: Social Judgments and Emotion Recognition

An outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus (SARS-CoV-2) made face masks use a norm in individuals’ daily lives. The information individuals obtained with face perception is potentially affected by regular face mask use. This study investigated the effects of face masks, ethnicities, and sex on the social judgments including sex, age, trustworthiness, facial attractiveness, and approachability. Later, the effects of face masks, ethnicities, and sex, and facial expressions of happy, neutral, and sad faces on valence and arousal were studied. Likert-type scales and Self-Assessment Manikin were used in an online experiment by Psychopy to capture face perception. Only sex influences sex score in an apparent manner, and unmasked faces appear as more attractive. Face masks and ethnicities do not seem to have effects on sex, age, attractiveness, trustworthiness, and approachability. Faces with different expressions influence the scoring in valence and arousal scale. The results of the present study may be informative for the current pandemic for people to have fruitful social engagements.