Open AccessHow the fear of COVID-19 changed the way we look at human faces
Author(s) -
Giovanni Federico,
Donatella Ferrante,
Francesco Marcatto,
Maria A. Brandimonte
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
peerj
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.927
H-Index - 70
ISSN - 2167-8359
DOI - 10.7717/peerj.11380
Subject(s) - covid-19 , pandemic , transmission (telecommunications) , psychology , cognitive psychology , medicine , virology , computer science , disease , telecommunications , pathology , outbreak , infectious disease (medical specialty)
Do we look at persons currently or previously affected by COVID-19 the same way as we do with healthy ones? In this eye-tracking study, we investigated how participants ( N = 54) looked at faces of individuals presented as “COVID-19 Free”, “Sick with COVID-19”, or “Recovered from COVID-19”. Results showed that participants tend to look at the eyes of COVID-19-free faces longer than at those of both COVID-19-related faces. Crucially, we also found an increase of visual attention for the mouth of the COVID-19-related faces, possibly due to the threatening characterisation of such area as a transmission vehicle for SARS-CoV-2. Thus, by detailing how people dynamically changed the way of looking at faces as a function of the perceived risk of contagion, we provide the first evidence in the literature about the impact of the pandemic on the most basic level of social interaction.