The Impact Of Facial Occlusion On Emotion Perception: The Embodiment Effect And Its Mechanis

The embodied cognition perspective holds that the body,mind,and environment interact with each other,and the body not only provides materials needed for cognition but also affects cognitive processes.Embodied cognition believes that the meaning of metaphors and bodily experiences can affect people’s cognition and emotions.In the special context of post-epidemic era,masks not only represent "health" and "hygiene",but also carry our special feelings about epidemics.Currently,although there have been many discussions on the impact of facial covering on advanced cognitive activities,there is a lack of research on facial covering’s impact on "subjects".Embodied cognition emphasizes "living bodies",so it is necessary for us to focus on subjects in our research,namely the impact of facial covering on wearers’ own mental processes,and fill in gaps in research lacking intrinsic mechanisms in this field.So far,this should be the first study conducted from wearers’ perspective and exploring its underlying neural mechanisms.This study takes masks(covering)as its research object to explore their impact on emotional perception ability.Through two experiments,we demonstrate the impact of masks on emotional perception and explore its underlying neural mechanisms.Experiment 1 investigates the impact of facial covering on emotional perception ability and explores whether there is a relationship between masks and emotional perception.71 university students were selected as participants in Experiment 1,using a 2(mask group,observation group)× 7(basic emotion pictures: happy,neutral,angry,fearful,angry,sad,surprised)two-factor mixed experimental design.Whether or not to wear a mask is the between-subject variable.Participants need to complete complementary emotional intensity rating formulas,that is,to explore the impact of facial covering on emotional perception ability by rating 7 dimensions for each emotional picture.The results showed that:(1)Facial covering has a significant impact on happy,fearful,and surprised emotional faces,and masks have interactive effects on fearful emotional pictures.(2)The specific manifestation of the impact is that the emotional ratings of the experimental group are significantly higher than those of the control group,which means that after wearing masks,people become more sensitive to emotions.Experiment 2 investigates the neural mechanisms underlying the impact of facial covering on emotional perception ability and explores the intrinsic mechanisms of masks’ impact on emotional perception ability.35 university students were selected as participants in Experiment 2.In order to make this study more ecologically valid,we changed our stimulus materials to emotional videos.We used a 2(mask group,observation group)× 3(emotional videos: happy,sad,fearful)two-factor mixed experimental design.Whether or not to wear a mask is the between-subject variable.Participants need to complete complementary emotional intensity rating formulas to explore the impact of facial covering on emotional perception ability by rating 7 dimensions for each emotional video.The results showed that:(1)Facial covering has a significant impact on happy and fearful emotions in videos,and masks have interactive effects between different types of fearful emotion videos.(2)The specific manifestation of the impact is that the emotional ratings of the experimental group are significantly higher than those of the control group.We hope that our findings can provide insights into how wearing masks affects our bodies and emotions in daily life and how we can better cope with their effects.The study found that wearing masks can affect emotional perception ability,and the effect is mainly manifested in the significant impact on the frontal pole and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.The difference in brain activation caused by wearing masks is mainly concentrated in the posterior lateral prefrontal cortex and frontal pole.The results of this study suggest that wearing masks can affect people’s emotional perception ability,and this effect is related to the neural mechanisms of cognitive control,emotion regulation,and social decision-making.In summary,this study provides evidence for the impact of facial covering on emotional perception ability from the perspective of wearers and explores its underlying neural mechanisms.The findings suggest that wearing masks can affect people’s emotional perception ability,which has important implications for our daily lives.We hope that our research can provide insights into how we can better cope with the effects of wearing masks on our bodies and emotions.