Effects of Interoceptive Awareness on Recognition of and Sensitivity to Emotions in Masked Facial Stimuli

The present study examined associations between presence/absence of a mask and facial emotion recognition, and how interoceptive awareness, i.e., the perception of internal bodily sensations, may influence associations between them. Eighty-two university students participated in an online behavioral experiment. Participants were required to evaluate categories of emotions as well as valence and arousal levels of facial stimuli that were either neutral or expressed one of Paul Ekman's basic emotions, i.e., anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. Participants also completed a psychological scale on interoceptive awareness. Results showed that accuracy of categorization was significantly lower and levels of valence and arousal were significantly closer to neutral in masked than in unmasked faces for multiple emotions. In addition, individuals who showed higher, as compared to lower, emotional awareness reported significantly higher levels of valence for masked stimuli that expressed surprise. These results suggest that wearing a mask can impair accuracy of facial emotion recognition and sensitivity to emotions, whereas awareness of the association between interoception and emotion might mitigate impairments of sensitivity to emotions in masked faces.