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Interpreting Emotions From Women With Covered Faces: A Comparison Between a Middle Eastern and Western-European Sample

While new regulations obligate or recommend people to wear medical masks at public places to prevent further spread of the Covid-19 virus, there are still open questions as to what face coverage does to social emotional communication. Previous research on the effects of wearing veils or face-coverin...

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Autores principales: Kret, Mariska E., Maitner, Angela T., Fischer, Agneta H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8137903/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34025499
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.620632
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author Kret, Mariska E.
Maitner, Angela T.
Fischer, Agneta H.
author_facet Kret, Mariska E.
Maitner, Angela T.
Fischer, Agneta H.
author_sort Kret, Mariska E.
collection PubMed
description While new regulations obligate or recommend people to wear medical masks at public places to prevent further spread of the Covid-19 virus, there are still open questions as to what face coverage does to social emotional communication. Previous research on the effects of wearing veils or face-covering niqabs showed that covering of the mouth led to the attribution of negative emotions and to the perception of less intense positive emotions. The current study compares a sample from the Netherlands with a sample from the United Arab Emirates on their perception of emotions from faces covered by a niqab, censoring black bars, or uncovered faces. The results show that covering the mouth area leads to greater anxiety in participants in both countries. Furthermore, although participants did not report greater decoding difficulties for faces that were covered as compared to fully visible, results show that face coverage did influence emotion perception. Specifically, happiness and anger were perceived as being less intense. Further, face coverage by a niqab, as compared to black bars, yielded lower emotional intensity ratings. We conclude that face coverage in particular can modulate the perception of emotions, but that affective contextual cues may play a role as well.
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spelling pubmed-81379032021-05-22 Interpreting Emotions From Women With Covered Faces: A Comparison Between a Middle Eastern and Western-European Sample Kret, Mariska E. Maitner, Angela T. Fischer, Agneta H. Front Psychol Psychology While new regulations obligate or recommend people to wear medical masks at public places to prevent further spread of the Covid-19 virus, there are still open questions as to what face coverage does to social emotional communication. Previous research on the effects of wearing veils or face-covering niqabs showed that covering of the mouth led to the attribution of negative emotions and to the perception of less intense positive emotions. The current study compares a sample from the Netherlands with a sample from the United Arab Emirates on their perception of emotions from faces covered by a niqab, censoring black bars, or uncovered faces. The results show that covering the mouth area leads to greater anxiety in participants in both countries. Furthermore, although participants did not report greater decoding difficulties for faces that were covered as compared to fully visible, results show that face coverage did influence emotion perception. Specifically, happiness and anger were perceived as being less intense. Further, face coverage by a niqab, as compared to black bars, yielded lower emotional intensity ratings. We conclude that face coverage in particular can modulate the perception of emotions, but that affective contextual cues may play a role as well. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-05-07 /pmc/articles/PMC8137903/ /pubmed/34025499 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.620632 Text en Copyright © 2021 Kret, Maitner and Fischer. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Kret, Mariska E.
Maitner, Angela T.
Fischer, Agneta H.
Interpreting Emotions From Women With Covered Faces: A Comparison Between a Middle Eastern and Western-European Sample
title Interpreting Emotions From Women With Covered Faces: A Comparison Between a Middle Eastern and Western-European Sample
title_full Interpreting Emotions From Women With Covered Faces: A Comparison Between a Middle Eastern and Western-European Sample
title_fullStr Interpreting Emotions From Women With Covered Faces: A Comparison Between a Middle Eastern and Western-European Sample
title_full_unstemmed Interpreting Emotions From Women With Covered Faces: A Comparison Between a Middle Eastern and Western-European Sample
title_short Interpreting Emotions From Women With Covered Faces: A Comparison Between a Middle Eastern and Western-European Sample
title_sort interpreting emotions from women with covered faces: a comparison between a middle eastern and western-european sample
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8137903/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34025499
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.620632
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