ERIC Number: EJ1454263
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 9
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-2047-3869
EISSN: EISSN-2047-3877
The Effects of Face Masks on Emotional Appraisal Ability of Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Elizabeth Tate; Keith Wylie; Jennifer D. Moss
International Journal of Developmental Disabilities, v70 n8 p1532-1540 2024
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically altered the ways in which people are able to communicate effectively. The addition of the face mask as a distracting stimulus interrupts the holistic process that people use to interpret facial expressions. The present study seeks to investigate the impact of face masking and gaze direction on emotion recognition in students with autism. We predicted that students with autism (n = 14), who characteristically experience difficulties when appraising emotions, would struggle to assess the emotions of people wearing face masks. We did not find a significant three-way interaction of emotion, mask, and gaze on classification accuracy. We did, however, find that face masks reduced participants' ability to emotionally appraise sad faces. Further, participants showed better accuracy appraising faces with a direct gaze. Exploring how face masks impact autistic individuals' emotion recognition will benefit special educators as they adapt to teaching during the pandemic, as well as the general population that seeks to improve communication with neurodiverse persons. Future studies should examine emotional appraisal ability and additional emotions as well as different kinds of emotional stimuli.
Descriptors: COVID-19, Pandemics, Hygiene, Students with Disabilities, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Emotional Response, Nonverbal Communication, Eye Movements, Barriers
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A