| In the context of the novel coronavirus pandemic(COVID-19),masks play an important role in preventing its spread.Wearing a mask obscures part of the face,but,the eyes as the only uncovered part of the face,can provide spatial cues that convey the direction of social attention.Previous studies have found that change gaze direction in the observer’s eyes induce automatic attention shifts in observers,this phenomenon known as the gaze cueing effect(GCE).Recent studies have found that wearing mask affects individual’s face perception,and this effect occurs in social interactions,has social significance,so this is a high-level social message.In addition,the gaze cuing effect is influenced by social factors,but there is no consensus on the effect of face masks on the gaze cuing effect.Here,we adopted a spatial gaze-cueing task to investigate whether face masks affect the gaze cueing effect,including 2 studies and 3experiments,using behavioral and event-related potential techniques to explore the effect of face masks on the gaze cuing effect,it’s aim to solve three problems: the first is to explore whether face masks effect on the gaze cuing effect,the second is if face masks affect the gaze cuing effect,then whether this effect is due to the physical occlusion of masks,and the third is if face masks affect the gaze cuing effect,how does this effect manifest itself over the course of time.In Experiment 1,two face materials(masked and non-masked faces)and two stimulus onset asynchrony(SOA)conditions(300 ms and 1000 ms)were used in the target discrimination task,and participants were asked to judge the emerging target.It was found that the gaze cuing effect was smaller in masked face condition compared with non-masked faces in 300 ms SOA,while there was no significant difference between masked and non-masked faces in 1000 ms SOA.Experiment 2 used the lower half of the occlusion face(mouth-cut face)and masked face as experimental materials,and the results showed that the gaze cuing effect was no difference in the two face conditions at 300 ms and 1000 ms SOA,indicating that face masks effect on the gaze cuing effect may be due to its social significance rather than the physical occlusion of the mask.Experiment 3 uses event-related potential technology to further explore face masks effect on the gaze cuing effect on the time course.To control the length of the experiment,SOA was fixed at 700 ms.The effect of masked face on cue processing can be reflected by EDAN(Early directing attention negativity)and ADAN(Anterior directing attention negativity),and the effect on the target processing stage after cue can be reflected by N1 and P3.The results showed that within 180-220 ms after the presentation of the cue,the masked face did not induce an obvious effect EDAN-like,while the non-masked faces induced an obvious EDAN-like,indicating that the effect of face masks on the gaze cuing effect would be manifested in EDAN-like at the cue processing stage.Within 350-400 ms in target presentation stage,masked face induced smaller P3 than non-masked faces in incongruent condition.However,there was no difference in the effect of masked and non-masked faces on P3 in congruent condition,indicating that face masks effect on the gaze cuing effect would be manifested on P3 during the target processing stage.This study found that face masks effect on the gaze cuing effect occurred in the early stages of social attention orienting and the expectation that the target would appear in congruent condition in target presentation stage.The results of this study extend previous findings to support the idea that high-level social message influences gaze direction processing,providing preliminary evidence that face masks affect social cognition and behavior in the context of COVID-19. |
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