Social sensitivity predicts accurate emotion inference from facial expressions in a face mask: a study in Japan

Most prior research examining whether emotions can be accurately inferred from facial expressions with masks have been conducted with Western samples. Thus, there is a current lack of studies on this topic, as well as on factors affecting individual differences in the accuracy of emotion inference, among non-Western samples. This study examined the effects of social anxiety and social sensitivity on the accuracy of emotion inference from masked facial expressions in a Japanese sample. The results showed that wearing a mask made it difficult to identify the emotions of sadness and fear, happy and neutral expressions remained unaffected, and angry expressions were read more accurately. Further, while the findings show that a general higher ability to infer emotions from facial expressions may help ensure the accuracy of emotion inference from facial expressions with a mask, social sensitivity directly predicted the accuracy of emotion inference from facial expressions with a mask. These findings suggest that people who can infer complex mental states of others from subtle cues may be less susceptible to the effects of face masks.