Masking our emotions: Emotion recognition and perceived intensity differ by race and use of medical masks

Although medical masks have played a key role in decreasing the transmission of communicable disease, they simultaneously reduce the availability of nonverbal cues fundamental to social interaction. In the present study, we determined the collective impact of medical masks on emotional expression recognition and perceived intensity as a function of actor race. Participants completed an emotional expression recognition task involving stimuli with or without medical masks. Across six basic emotional facial expressions, medical masks were associated with significantly more emotional expression recognition errors. Overall, the effects associated with race varied depending on the emotion and appearance of masks. Whereas recognition accuracy was higher for White relative to Black actors for anger and sadness, the opposite pattern was observed for disgust. Medical mask-wearing exacerbated actor-race related recognition differences for anger and surprise, but attenuated these differences for fear. Emotional expression intensity ratings were significantly reduced for all emotions except fear, where masks were associated with increased perceived intensity. Masks further increased already higher intensity ratings for anger in Black versus White actors. In contrast, masks eliminated the tendency to give higher intensity ratings for Black versus White sad and happy facial expressions. Overall, our results suggest that the interaction between actor race and mask wearing status with respect to emotional expression judgements is complex, varying by emotion in both direction and degree. We consider the implications of these results particularly in the context of emotionally charged social contexts, such as in conflict, healthcare, and policing.