Usually our faces speak volumes. And even small children learn to read other people’s feelings from their facial expressions. But what does it look like under mouth and nose masks in times of pandemics?
Concern for emotional development
Corona does not make it easier for people to work together. The contacts are reduced, and if there is a togetherness, a mask is usually required. Children also have to deal with constantly interacting with people whose faces are partially covered. Educators and psychologists therefore ask themselves whether the emotional development of the little ones suffers.
American researchers have now investigated this more closely with the help of 80 children between the ages of 7 and 13. They showed them photos of sad, fearful or angry faces, some without a mask, some with mouth and nose protection and some with sunglasses. Have the children read the feelings and assign them to 6 given emotions.
Better than guessing
If the face was clear, the children correctly recognized the feelings in 66% of the cases. With the mouth and nose protection they identified 28% of the sad faces, 27% of the angry and 18% of the fearful. It was also shown that emotions can be read in different areas of the face. Sunglasses made it particularly difficult to recognize fear and anger. This is probably because the facial expressions of the eyes and eyebrows are important for these feelings. Fear was difficult to read even under a face mask and was often mistaken for surprise – probably because the mouth was not recognizable.
Worries are unfounded
As expected, it was more difficult for the children to read emotions from masked faces. But they succeeded so well that a coincidence could be ruled out. The authors are convinced that if children can read emotions from a photograph, they will do it even better in real life. After all, posture, tone of voice and the entire situation also help with the assessment.
“Children adapt well to the information they receive,” reassures the head of the study, “therefore it cannot be assumed that wearing a mask delays emotional development”.
Swell: www.kinderärzte-im-netz.de, PLOS one
From: Dr. honey. Sonja Kempinski
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