Mask-wearing and facial emotion recognition: a preliminary analysis of the relevance of depressive symptoms

Abstract

Depression is a psychiatric condition that impairs the life of millions of people around the globe. Previous research has shown that depressed individuals tend to present deficits in facial emotion perception. For instance, perception accuracy may be reduced and biases in perceived intensity may be enhanced. Mask-wearing practices initiated in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have become a new social norm often enforced by local mandates. Preliminary studies have shown that mask-wearing may impair facial emotion recognition. In this study, we aimed at understanding how facial emotion recognition impairment interacts with depressive symptoms in a sample of German adolescents and adults (N = 91, 56% female, mean age of 32.7 years) by utilizing a mixed-effects linear regression analysis. We found evidence that mask-wearing may be a limiting factor for facial emotion recognition, as well as for emotion intensity ratings. However, a significant association of depressive symptoms with these outcome variables was not detected. Still, larger sample sizes may have the potential to substantiate a trend toward an interaction of depressive symptoms and mask-wearing for the rating of happy faces. Future research should be committed to psychophysiological processes and to improving the quality of the stimulus material.