Face mask design to mitigate facial expression occlusion

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic dictated that wearing face masks during public interactions was the new norm across much of the globe. As the masks naturally occlude part of the wearer's face, the part of communication that occurs through facial expressions is lost, and could reduce acceptance of mask wear. To address the issue, we created 2 face mask prototypes, incorporating simple expressive display elements and evaluated them in a user study. Aiming to explore the potential for low-cost solutions, suitable for large-scale deployment, our concepts utilized bi-state electrochromic displays. One concept Mouthy Mask aimed to reproduce the image of the wearer's mouth, whilst the Smiley Mask was symbolic in nature. The smart face masks were considered useful in public contexts to support short socially expected rituals. Generally a visualization directly representing the wearer's mouth was preferred to an emoji style visualization. As a contribution, our work presents a stepping stone towards productizable solutions for smart face masks that potentially increase the acceptability of face mask wear in public.

CorrNet: Fine-Grained Emotion Recognition for Video Watching Using Wearable Physiological Sensors

“…In this paper, we only test it using wearable physiological signals to maximize the generalizability of it towards different potential application scenarios (e.g., mobile video watching). Facial expressions, for example, are not always possible to capture when users are on the move [ 27 ], wearing a mask [ 121 ] and Head-Mounted Display (HMD) [ 122 ], or under the conditions with inadequate light [ 123 ]. In the future, we will extend CorrNet to use signals in other modalities and investigate whether the recognition accuracy can be further improved.…”

Trustworthiness appraisals of faces wearing a surgical mask during the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany: An experimental study

“…In addition, they are assumed to increase mental stress during interpersonal encounters; they might make social judgements more difficult by partially hiding facial features indicating another person's emotions and intentions, thereby hampering smooth social interactions [5][6][7]. Some authors have already suggested how to deal with these social issues, for example by designing face masks with simple expressive display elements [8] or inducing facial muscle paralysis by botulinum toxin targeting the muscles of the top visible half of the face in order to reduce negative emotions and promote well-being for both the mask-wearer and those who come in contact with that individual [9]. However, empirical studies investigating how MNCs influence the recognition of emotions and complex social judgements are sparse [5,10,11].…”

Iswc 2020

“…8 Bottom left: Face masks that mitigate occlusion of facial expressions. 10 Bottom right: Snacap apparatus for snacking detection with smart fabrics. 15 All photos used with permission of the authors.…”

“…Genç et al 10 demonstrated how to design face masks with the goal of mitigating the occlusion of facial expression (see Figure 1). This work is of special importance during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, where facemasks arguably represent an effective means to limit the spread of the disease and keep people safe.…”