Masks impair the recognition of six basic facial expressions, according to new research published in the journal Social Psychology. The findings suggests that visual information from lower portions of the face play an important role in understanding facial expressions. “We know that humans communicate with facial cues, and of those cues, facial expressions are one of the most important because they signal another individual’s emotional state,” said study author Sarah McCrackin, postdoctoral fellow at the Laboratory for Social Attention and Cognition at McGill University. “While masks are criti…