Are covered faces eye-catching for us? The impact of masks on attentional processing of self and other faces during the COVID-19 pandemic

Żochowska, Anna; Jakuszyk, Paweł; Nowicka, Maria; Nowicka, Anna

doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2022.01.015

Cited by 16 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 105 publications

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“…Yet another study [16] has reported that face-masks affect social cognition in aged adults and people afflicted with dementia. Another recent study found neural correlates of attentional processing in the presence of face-masks [18]. The face selective N170 component was found to be similar for both unmasked and masked faces, whereas the P100, P300 and LPP (attention-related components) were found to be higher for masked faces as opposed to unmasked faces.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…Neural analysis focused on ERP components of P100, N170, and N250. For the N170 and N250 ERP components, the left-brain and right-brain electrode clusters were chosen as TP7, P7, P9, PO3, and PO7, and TP8, P8, P10, PO4, and PO8, respectively ( [35], [36], [18]). whereas, for the P100 ERP components, the electrode clusters were chosen as O1, O2, PO3 and PO4 (Fig.…”

Section: Neural Data Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…whereas, for the P100 ERP components, the electrode clusters were chosen as O1, O2, PO3 and PO4 (Fig. 6), respectively ( [18]). Peak based amplitude was considered for P100 and N170 whereas mean amplitude over 230-320 ms was considered for N250 component.…”

Section: Neural Data Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The event-related potentials of the three early components (P100, N170 and N250) was analysed for true positive responses. For the P100 ERP components, the electrode cluster was chosen as O1, O2, PO3, and PO4 electrodes ( [18]). For N170 and N250, the left-brain and right-brain electrode clusters were chosen as TP7, P7, P9, PO3, and PO7, and TP8, P8, P10, PO4, and PO8, respectively.…”

Section: Neural Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although there have been several behavioral studies exploring effect of face masks on face processing under various condition during covid-19 [11,14,13,16,18,12,39], only two studies reported on the modulation of neural timeline being affected by the face mask. The first study [18] found that attention related components (P100, P300 and LPP) are higher in masked conditions and the second study [39] used emotional face stimuli to explore the effect of mask and found significant effect of mask on face related components(N170 and P200). To the best of our knowledge, exploring neural correlates of face identity using face masks has not been reported previously.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Does visual experience with face masks aid face recognition during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Karmakar

Das

2022

Journal of Vision

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The introduction of face masks during COVID-19 presents a potential challenge for human face perception and recognition. Face masks possibly hinder the holistic processing of faces leading to difficulty in facial recognition. Our present study aims to investigate this issue by probing the neuropsychological mechanisms of face recognition, while also exploring a possible learning effect observed in regularly seen (personally familiar) masked faces. Our stimuli consisted of personally familiar, famous, and unfamiliar Indian faces in masked and unmasked conditions. Subjects participated in a 2-back task wherein trials were balanced within and across blocks to represent all conditions identically, while behavioral and EEG responses were recorded. Statistical analyses revealed significant main effects of familiarity and mask-conditions on performance accuracy and reactiontime (RT). The highest performance accuracy was observed for familiar and unmasked faces and the least for unfamiliar and masked ones, whereas RTs followed expected reverse trends. Notably, the difference in performance accuracy between unmasked and masked famous faces was more prominent than that for personally familiar faces. These observations are suggestive of a beneficial effect of visual experience found for frequently seen masked faces. Masked unfamiliar faces contributed to the highest proportion of false-positive errors, indicating the inherent difficulty in processing novel masked faces 1

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%