Fig. 7.

Social signals of masked and visible smiles. The graphs illustrate levels of social signals communicated in videos of visible and masked faces expressing reward, affiliation, and dominance smiles. For reward smiles, masks reduced both the target signal (positive feeling; p = .003) and non-target signals (p = .046), however, a marginally significant (p = .072) between face presentation and rating scale interaction indicated that the effect was stronger for the target signal ratings than non-target signal ratings. For affiliation smiles, masks impaired perceptions of both the target (reassurance; p = .06) and non-target ratings (p = .002), and the interaction was not significant (p = .40). For dominance smiles, masks impaired perception of the target signal (superiority; p < .001) but not of non-target ratings (p = .67). The interaction was significant (p = .006). †p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001