Abstract

This study examined social anxiety and facial emotion recognition with and without face mask-wearing in a social threat sit- uation. A total of 309 adult males and females were screened using the Korean version of the Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (K-SADS) and the Korean version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale-Revised (K-CES-DR). Of the participants, 56 individuals were divided into the social anxiety and non-social anxiety groups. Both groups were then ex- posed to threatening social situations. Using the signal detection theory, the sensitivity and cognitive bias in emotion recogni- tion with and without face mask-wearing was examined. Results showed that the social anxiety group had significantly lower perceptual sensitivity and more negative interpretation bias to faces, with or without face masks. Specifically, the perceptual sensitivity was significantly lower to faces with masks; however, there was no significant difference in interpretation bias. Al- though both groups showed no significant difference in reaction time with the emotional expression on masked faces, the so- cial anxiety group responded faster to faces wearing masks. As this is the first prospective study to investigate facial emotion recognition with face mask-wearing related to social anxiety, it provides valuable insight and data for future research.