Masked face is looking at me: Face mask increases the feeling of being looked at during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

BackgroundAs the COVID-19 global pandemic unfolded, governments recommended wearing face masks as a protective measure. Recent studies have found that a face mask influences perception; but how it affects social perception, especially the judgment of being looked at, is still unknown. This study investigated how wearing a mask influences the judgment of gaze direction by conducting a cone of direct gaze (CoDG) task.MethodsIn Experiment 1, three types of masked faces were considered to investigate whether the effect of masks on CoDG is modulated by mask types. Experiment 2 was to further validate the results of Experiment 1 by adding a learning phase to help participants better distinguish N95 and surgical masks. Furthermore, to investigate whether the effect of masks derives from its social significance, a face with only the eye-region (a mouth-cut face) was used as the stimuli in Experiment 3.ResultsThe results of Experiment 1 found that wearing masks widens the CoDG, irrespective of the mask type. Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1. Experiment 3 found that the CoDG of N95-masked faces was wider than the mouth-cut and non-masked faces, while no significant difference existed between the CoDG of mouth-cut and non-masked faces, illustrating that the influence of wearing masks on CoDG was due to high-level social significance rather than low-level facial feature information.ConclusionThe results show that face mask increases the feeling of being looked at during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The present findings are of significance for understanding the impact of wearing masks on human social cognition in the context of COVID-19.

Face mask reduces gaze-cueing effect

“…The findings of our study showed that social attention orienting triggered by gaze can be modulated by face masks, which is in line with previous studies showing that face masks affect judgment of gaze directions 40 , 41 . One possible explanation for the reduction of GCE triggered by masked faces is that wearing masks is considered a pro-social behaviour while wearing no mask is considered antisocial behaviour.…”

Face Mask Reduces Gaze-Cueing Effect

“…The current study provides new evidence that the perception processing of gaze direction can be modulated by face masks, which is in line with previous studies showing that face masks affect judgment of gaze directions 39,40 . However, the ndings of our study were not in line with the results of Dalmaso 22 , which showed that face masks did not alter the gaze-cueing effect.…”

Autistic traits modulate the influence of face masks on gaze perception

“…Our results suggest that much like when eye-region cues are less reliable, a reduction in the reliability of lower face cues increases gaze direction uncertainty, thereby increasing the range of angles at which gaze is perceived as self-directed 10 – 12 . Two recent studies, published subsequent to completion of data collection for the present study, also reported an increase in the width of the CoDG when perceiving gaze in masked compared to unmasked faces 48 , 49 . While the width of the CoDG increased only slightly for masked faces in our study (0.3°), this is closely aligned with an increase of 0.28° reported by 48 .…”

“…an increase in the width of the CoDG). Indeed, two recent studies, published subsequent to completion of data collection for the present study, reported an increase in the width of the CoDG when perceiving gaze in masked compared to unmasked faces 48 , 49 . Additionally, the relative extent to which people weight eye-region and non-eye-region cues during gaze perception could affect the extent to which face masks impact their perception of gaze direction.…”