York University study explores effect of masking on wearer’s perception

A York University study explored the effects of masking on the wearer’s ability to recognize others, and the results surprised even the researchers themselves.

Professor Erez Freud co-authored the study with two York University undergraduate students, Daniela Di Giammarino and Carmel Camilleri, to determine how a mask wearers perception of others is impacted.

“We actually conducted four different studies. So in the first study that you can actually see here, we asked the participants either to wear a mask or to be without a mask, while they conducted a face recognition task,” said Freud. “We found that wearing a mask reduces your ability to recognize faces.”

In the second version of the study, participants were asked to identify whether two faces wearing masks were the same person or not – both while wearing a mask themselves and without one.

“Once again, we found that when you have your masks on your face, perception ability drops in something around 10 per cent,” said Freud.

Participants were asked to recognize objects instead of faces in the third version of the study, with the results showing no effect on the ability to recognize an object with a mask on – solidifying that the phenomenon only happens when recognizing faces.

In the fourth version of the study, researchers found that wearing a mask elsewhere on the face or head had no effect on face perception.

“When we wear the mask, obviously we put the mask on the nose and the mouth, two very distinctive features of the face. So we did something which is kind of weird and funny. We ask the participants to actually place the mask on the forehead, so it still covers part of the face, but not a distinctive feature – and then the effect disappears.”

The study involved 80 participants from around the world and was conducted online. Freud believes there are two possible explanations for why wearing a mask might interfere with the ability to recognize faces.

“When we have something on our face, we stimulate the mouth, we stimulate the nose, and this might change the way we process other faces,” said Freud.

“The other mechanism is called egocentric intrusion – that is we take into account what others might see. So if I wear a mask, I think that I’m less recognizable and therefore it drops my ability to recognize others”

The results of the study reinforce what one might be perceiving is not always an accurate depiction of what someone is actually seeing.

“If we can’t recognize others, it obviously might change the way we interact with others,” said Freud. “So we need to take this into account when we look on others whose masked, when we wear a mask, we need to understand that others might be less able to recognize us and we need to be a bit more patient to each other.”