Browsing by Author "Hohenberger, Giuliana"
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- Face mask and emotion discrimination: a duchenne smile studyPublication . Hohenberger, Giuliana; Fernandes, AlexandreThis project efforts to investigate the impact of face masks in emotion discrimination. More specifically, this influence was meticulously observed on the judgement of happiness. Is known that this emotion is mainly expressed by the smile. Therefore, the paradigm was constructed around two types of smiles: Duchenne – considered as a happy genuine expression, and the non-Duchenne - which embrace a range of deliberate /fake smiles – contemplated as social and polite smiles. It was hypothesized that the faces covered with the protective masks would reveal a less accurate discrimination than the unmasked faces. Align to this perspective, it was assumed that the masked non-Duchenne smile would be the most impaired, predicting the lowest accuracy proportions. This premise was formulated starting from the assumption that when covering the main clue (the smile), which supports most of a happiness discrimination, a decrease to classify this smile as a happy expression would be expected. Therefore, this research carried out three studies. In Study 1 (N = 29), participants responded two discrimination judgments for masked and unmasked faces: (1) happiness discrimination from other emotions and (2) whether the happy emotion was a genuine expression or not. Happy faces of Duchenne and non-Duchenne were presented mixed with each other, so it was assumed that the high accuracy discrimination responses from the experiment, were a consequence from how the faces were displayed - which could have provoked a greater ease to discriminate the smiles, since there is a distinct contrast between them. Consequently, Study 2 (N = 32) was designed to verify if the responses were not affected by the appearance´ configuration, that could facilitate the judgment by contrasting the smiles. Hence, the smiles were displayed separately in two different blocks, representing happiness. Three additional blocks were added to analyze mask impact and discrimination for fear, anger, and sadness. Considering the current context, empathy and anxiety measures were incorporated to this project, aiming to examine if the discriminations were associated to these variables, and consequently, influenced by the present setting. Primarily, the results indicated a decrease in emotion perception when faces appear covered by protective masks. The discrimination accuracy was lower for masked faces, but not statistically significative for anger and fear. A difficulty to judge the masked non-Duchenne smile was detected in all the judgements. For this type of smile the only clue to a happiness expression is the smile, and when covered by the face mask, it confirms the that lack of this main sign impact happiness discrimination. On contrary, the Duchenne smile revealed a great level of sensitivity, with and without the mask, highlighting the importance of the orbicularis oculi in the happiness discrimination. Additionally, sadness, when compared to the other emotions, revealed a substantial decrease in emotion discrimination. This variation was evident when the faces appeared with and without mask, indicating a significant lower accuracy when the faces were partially covered.