The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the nature of our social interactions. In order to understand how protective equipment and distancing measures influence the ability to comprehend others’ emotions and, thus, to effectively interact with others, we carried out an online study across the Italian population during the first pandemic peak. Participants were shown static facial expressions (Angry, Happy and Neutral) covered by a sanitary mask or by a scarf. They were asked to evaluate the expressed emotions as well as to assess the degree to which one would adopt physical and social distancing measures for each stimulus. Results demonstrate that, despite the covering of the lower-face, participants correctly recognized the facial expressions of emotions with a polarizing effect on emotional valence ratings found in females. Noticeably, while females’ ratings for physical and social distancing were driven by the emotional content of the stimuli, males were influenced by the “covered” condition. The results also show the impact of the pandemic on anxiety and fear experienced by participants. Taken together, our results offer novel insights on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on social interactions, providing a deeper understanding of the way people react to different kinds of protective face covering.

Facial expressions are of major importance in understanding the mental and emotional states of others. So far, most studies on the perception and comprehension of emotions have used isolated facial expressions as stimuli; for example, photographs of actors displaying facial expressions corresponding to one of the so called ‘basic emotions.’ However, our real experience during social interactions is different: facial expressions of emotion are mostly perceived in a wider context, constituted by body language, the surrounding environment, and our beliefs and expectations. Already in the early twentieth century, the Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov argued that such context, established by intermediate shots of strong emotional content, could significantly change our interpretation of facial expressions in film. Prior experiments have shown behavioral effects pointing in this direction, but have only used static images as stimuli. Our study used a more ecological design with participants watching film sequences of neutral faces, crosscut with scenes of strong emotional content (evoking happiness or fear, plus neutral stimuli as a baseline condition). The task was to rate the emotion displayed by a target person’s face in terms of valence, arousal, and category. Results clearly demonstrated the presence of a significant effect in terms of both valence and arousal in the fear condition only. Moreover, participants tended to categorize the target person’s neutral facial expression choosing the emotion category congruent with the preceding context. Our results highlight the context-sensitivity of emotions and the importance of studying them under ecologically valid conditions.

cardiac synchrony is a crucial component of shared experiences, considered as an objective measure of emotional processes accompanying empathic interactions. no study has investigated whether cardiac synchrony among people engaged in collective situations links to the individual emotional evaluation of the shared experience. We investigated theatrical live performances as collective experiences evoking strong emotional engagement in the audience. Cross Recurrence Quantification Analysis was applied to obtain the cardiac synchrony of twelve spectators' quartets attending to two live acting performances. this physiological measure was then correlated with spectators' emotional intensity ratings. Results showed an expected increment in synchrony among people belonging to the same quartet during both performances attendance and rest periods. furthermore, participants' cardiac synchrony was found to be correlated with audience's convergence in the explicit emotional evaluation of the performances they attended to. These findings demonstrate that the mere co-presence of other people sharing a common experience is enough for cardiac synchrony to occur spontaneously and that it increases in function of a shared and coherent explicit emotional experience. Collective experiences are ubiquitous aspects of human culture where emotional activity finds its breeding epicenter. Being involved in collective events, like religious rituals, parades or team sports, fosters prosociality 1 and contributes to the creation of emotional bonds among group members 2. Coherently, it has been shown that the presence of others modulates how individuals feel, express and perceive emotions 3. Amongst the various group experiences populating our social life, specific forms of "collective art" can be included. Indeed, even if some forms of art can be described as "individual", in the sense that usually people enjoy them alone, others are commonly appreciated together with other people. This is the case of several performative arts (e.g., theatre, dance, music) in which people share the artistic experience as part of a group. Studies show that people react differently to these forms of art if they enjoy them alone or with others, suggesting that the presence of others plays a role. For example, at the autonomic level, people react more to music when they are alone than when are in a group 4,5. Differently, watching an aggressive movie clip modulates spectator's subsequent behaviors, on the basis of the attitude of the co-spectators 6. Furthermore, how people react to the mere presence of others influences their parasympathetic response to shared filmic experience 7. One interesting component of collective experiences, that recently drew increasing attention, is the spontaneous synchronization among group members. Synchrony is a well-known phenomenon occurring at different levels (e.g., behavioral, physiological and neural), and it is related to the presence of similar reactions among group members within a short period of time. For example, people...

In this study, the neural mechanism subserving the ability to understand people’s emotional and mental states by observing their body language (facial expression, body posture and mimics) was investigated in healthy volunteers. ERPs were recorded in 30 Italian University students while they evaluated 280 pictures of highly ecological displays of emotional body language that were acted out by 8 male and female Italian actors. Pictures were briefly flashed and preceded by short verbal descriptions (e.g., “What a bore!”) that were incongruent half of the time (e.g., a picture of a very attentive and concentrated person shown after the previous example verbal description). ERP data and source reconstruction indicated that the first recognition of incongruent body language occurred 300 ms post-stimulus. swLORETA performed on the N400 identified the strongest generators of this effect in the right rectal gyrus (BA11) of the ventromedial orbitofrontal cortex, the bilateral uncus (limbic system) and the cingulate cortex, the cortical areas devoted to face and body processing (STS, FFA EBA) and the premotor cortex (BA6), which is involved in action understanding. These results indicate that face and body mimics undergo a prioritized processing that is mostly represented in the affective brain and is rapidly compared with verbal information. This process is likely able to regulate social interactions by providing on-line information about the sincerity and trustfulness of others.