Face masks and socioemotional development: Multimodal research on emotion processing of masked faces

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Wearing face masks provides necessary protection against the spread of COVID-19, but may affect facial expression processing in ways that are meaningful for development. Although many children spend hours every day interacting with masked others, there is limited research on the social and emotional effects of mask exposure. The proposed symposium integrates behavioral and neuroimaging approaches to explore associations between mask wearing, mask exposure, and face perception among both adults and children.

The first speaker will present a study of school-aged children and their fathers who rated emotional faces during fMRI scanning. Behavioral results suggest that unmasked faces are processed more accurate-ly than masked faces, and this difference is moderated by mask exposure for fathers but not children. The speaker will describe brain activation differences between masked vs unmasked conditions that may elucidate differences in accuracy.

The second speaker will report on a study of face perception that also included school-aged children and adults. Face perception, particularly holistic processing, was compromised when faces were masked, and greater experience with masked faces did not mitigate this difference.

The third speaker will present a face-perception task administered to young adults, finding that un-masked faces were processed more accurately than masked faces and that larger accuracy differences emerged for sad and fearful faces vs angry faces. Attention style and social anxiety moderated these effects.

Finally, the discussant, an expert on social developmental neuroscience, will discuss the three presentations and their implications for child development and public health policy.

Sub Unit

• Solicited Content: COVID-19 Related

Chair

• Darby E. Saxbe, University of Southern California

Discussant

• Johanna M Jarcho, Temple University

Individual Presentations

• Emotional processing of masked vs. unmasked faces in school-aged children and their fathers - Presenting Author: Yael Haya Waizman, University of Southern California; Pia Elizabeth Sellery, University of Colorado Boulder; Jasmine Liu, University of Southern California; Jasmin Wang; Darby E. Saxbe, University of Southern California

• Recognition of masked faces demonstrates the rigidity of the face processing system throughout development - Presenting Author: Erez Freud, York University

• Emotion Recognition of Masked vs. Unmasked Faces: Mitigating Cognitive and Psychopathological Factors - Presenting Author: Sara R. Berzenski, California State University - Northridge