Unlike most infectious diseases, COVID-19 is characterised by an absence of facial disease-signalling cues. Yet, it is still unclear whether it has influenced face perception. Understanding this may help clarify if and how our motivation toward social interactions is conditional on situational pathogen threats. The present study investigated if priming disease concerns about COVID-19 would change people's perception of neutral faces on perceived disease, social discomfort and arousal elicited by such faces; this condition was compared with other infectious/non-infectious diseases and a non-disease priming condition. One-hundred sixty-six participants recruited nationally performed the online task. When compared with the non-disease condition, participants primed for COVID-19 perceived faces as sicker and tended to view them as eliciting more social discomfort; no difference occurred in arousal. No other difference was found between conditions. These findings suggest that the pandemic context can shape how we perceive others' apparent sickness. Overall, these might reflect adaptations intertwined with the behavioural immune system's defence mechanisms.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 问题对感知他人面部的影响

与大多数传染病不同，COVID-19 的特点是缺乏面部疾病信号线索。然而，目前尚不清楚它是否影响了面部感知。了解这一点可能有助于澄清我们的社交互动动机是否以及如何以情境病原体威胁为条件。本研究调查了对 COVID-19 引发的疾病担忧是否会改变人们对中性面孔的看法，包括感知疾病、社交不适以及此类面孔引起的兴奋；将这种情况与其他传染性/非传染性疾病和非疾病引发情况进行比较。在全国招募的 166 名参与者执行了在线任务。与非疾病状态相比，准备应对 COVID-19 的参与者认为面部表情更加病态，并倾向于认为它们会引起更多的社交不适；唤醒方面没有差异。条件之间没有发现其他差异。这些发现表明，大流行背景可以影响我们如何看待他人的明显疾病。总的来说，这些可能反映了与行为免疫系统的防御机制交织在一起的适应。