"Human faces are one of the most prominent stimuli in the visual environment of young infants and convey critical information for the development of social cognition. During the COVID-19 pandemic, mask wearing has become a common practice outside the home environment. With masks covering nose and mouth regions, the facial cues available to the infant are impoverished. The impact of these changes on development is unknown but is critical to debates around mask mandates in early childhood settings. As infants grow, they increasingly interact with a broader range of familiar and unfamiliar people outside the home; in these settings, mask wearing could possibly influence social development. In order to generate hypotheses about the effects of mask wearing on infant social development, in the present work, we systematically review N = 129 studies selected based on the most recent PRISMA guidelines providing a state-of-the-art framework of behavioral studies investigating face processing in early infancy...
Introduction
... In the present paper, we summarize the wide corpus of studies on the development of face processing to understand possible effects of mask wearing as a function of infants’ developmental needs. To generate hypotheses, we consider the changes in facial cues resulting from mask wearing (mouth covered and eyes uncovered and breaking face configuration) and present a guided systematic review of behavioral studies investigating face processing during the first years of life (0–36 months). Mask wearing is discussed in terms of both altering face perception and hindering social communication by removing information about face configuration. Crucially, the aim of this review is to inform future research exploring the developmental effects of mask wearing, which is a key preventive measure to limit COVID-19 diffusion."
"This article is part of the Research Topic - Social Cognition and Social Influence in the Time of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)"
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