Islamic Headdress Influences How Emotion is Recognized from the Eyes

Abstract

Previous research has shown a negative bias in the perception of whole facial expressions from out-group members. Whether or not emotion recognition from the eyes is already sensitive to contextual information is presently a matter of debate. In three experiments we tested whether emotions can be recognized when just the eyes are visible and whether this recognition is affected by context cues, such as various Islamic headdresses vs. a cap or a scarf. Our results indicate that fear is still well recognized from a briefly flashed (100 ms) image of a women wearing a burqa with less than 20% transparency of the eye region. Moreover, the type of headdress influences how emotions are recognized. In a group of participants from non-Islamic background, fear was recognized better from women wearing a niqāb than from women wearing a cap and a shawl, whereas the opposite was observed for happy and sad expressions. The response patterns showed that fearful and anger labels were more often attributed to women with a niqāb vs. a cap and a shawl and again, an opposite pattern was observed for the happy response. However, there was no general response bias: both correct and incorrect responses were influenced by the facial expression as well. Anxiety levels and/or explicit negative associations with the Islam as measured via questionnaires did not mediate the effects. Consistent with the face literature, we conclude that the recognition of emotions from the eyes is also influenced by context.

Keywords: attitudes; context; emotion; face parts; out-group.

Figure 1

Perception of emotion from the eye region in a cultural context. The eye region was presented in four different contexts: (1) as part of a whole face (which is not shown in this figure but is depicted in Table 1), (2) in the context of a niqāb (a headscarf which only leaves the eyes visible), (3) in the context of a burqa where 80% of this region consisted of random noise, and (4) a burqa with 90% random noise.

Figure 2

Experiment 1. Inverse efficiency scores for the recognition of facial expressions in an Islamic context. Fearful and angry faces were equally well recognized in the hijāb as the niqāb condition. Fear was still recognized well in the burqa conditions and recognition did not differ between the two noise levels. Sadness was recognized poorly from just the eye region, especially when random noise was added.

Figure 3

Proportion of answers that were given to the headgear templates. A cap and scarf were more often associated with happiness than a niqāb.

Figure 4

**p < 0.001. All t-tests were two-tailed. (A) Inverse efficiency scores. The lower the number, the better the performance. Happiness was better recognized from women wearing a cap and a shawl than from women wearing a niqāb. Fear was slightly better recognized from women wearing out-group rather than in-group headdresses, irrespective of weather this was a niqāb or hijāb. (B) The graph shows the same data but difference scores are calculated of “in-group minus out-group” for inverse efficiency scores. The upper part of the graph shows conditions where the out-group was better recognized; the lower part where the in-group was better recognized.

Figure 5

(A) Inverse efficiency scores. The lower the number, the better the performance. Fear was better recognized from women wearing a niqāb vs. a cap and a shawl. Happiness and sadness were better recognized from women wearing a cap and a shawl than from women wearing a niqāb. (B) The graph shows difference scores from the “in-group minus out-group” inverse efficiency scores. The upper part of the graph shows conditions where the out-group was better recognized; the lower part where the in-group was better recognized, (C) the proportion of an emotion label given to a facial expression in different headdress-contexts (i.e., the number of fear responses to a niqāb divided by the total number of fear responses), (D) the proportion of an emotion label given to emotional eyes in the context of a niqāb or cap and shawl (i.e., the number of fear responses to a fearful face covered with a niqāb divided by the number of fear responses to a fearful face covered with a niqāb plus a cap and a scarf.