The COVID-19 pandemic masks the way people perceive faces

Erez Freud,Galia Avidan,Andreja Stajduhar,Tzvi Ganel,R Shayna Rosenbaum

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-78986-9

Erez Freud, Galia Avidan + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-78986-9

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Abstract

The unprecedented efforts to minimize the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic introduce a new arena for human face recognition in which faces are partially occluded with masks. Here, we tested the extent to which face masks change the way faces are perceived. To this end, we evaluated face processing abilities for masked and unmasked faces in a large online sample of adult observers (n = 496) using an adapted version of the Cambridge Face Memory Test, a validated measure of face perception abilities in humans. As expected, a substantial decrease in performance was found for masked faces. Importantly, the inclusion of masks also led to a qualitative change in the way masked faces are perceived. In particular, holistic processing, the hallmark of face perception, was disrupted for faces with masks, as suggested by a reduced inversion effect. Similar changes were found whether masks were included during the study or the test phases of the experiment. Together, we provide novel evidence for quantitative and qualitative alterations in the processing of masked faces that could have significant effects on daily activities and social interactions.

Highlights

The unprecedented efforts to minimize the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic introduce a new arena for human face recognition in which faces are partially occluded with masks
We explored the extent to which face masks led to reduction in face recognition abilities
The results show a robust alteration in face recognition abilities when masks are added to faces

Summary

Introduction

The unprecedented efforts to minimize the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic introduce a new arena for human face recognition in which faces are partially occluded with masks. It was found that surgical masks impair face perception of familiar and unfamiliar faces[7] These findings are consistent with experiments in which Gaussian masks (i.e., bubbles) were parametrically added to face images, revealing that the mouth and eye regions are among the most important sources of information that support face identification[8]. Together, these previous studies suggest that the occlusion of specific face features can impair face recognition abilities. Disruption in holistic processing has been observed in individuals with a cquired[12,13,14] and congenital[15,16] prosopagnosia, further emphasizing the significance

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