Are you having trouble communicating with your face mask on? Here are some tips

It’s a guessing game. Is your partner laughing at the joke you just made, or are they offended?

In early April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officially recommended that everyone wear a face mask to help stop the spread of the new coronavirus.

But covering the majority of your face can make it difficult to convey emotion and communicate with others during the pandemic, experts say.

“[People’s] mouths will often give away their state of mind,” Susan Krauss Whitbourne, a professor emerita of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst wrote in a Psychology Today blog post. “However, in a time when nearly everyone is wearing some type of lower facial covering, you’re left with the need to determine how the people around you are feeling with very limited cues.”

For decades, scientists have been studying the importance of face-to-face and nonverbal communication such as facial expressions, body language and posture.

In 1971, a major figure in the study of nonverbal communication said “total feeling = 7% verbal feeling + 38% vocal feeling + 55% facial feeling” in his book titled “Silent Messages,” Fast Company reported.

This, Albert Mehrabian said in his book, implies that facial expressions dominate any message you convey to another person.

The discovery of mirror neurons also brought attention to the significance of someone’s face during conversation.

The concept of mirror neurons -- “first discovered in monkey’s brains” -- is when you see a person take an action or express an emotion, your brain fires the same neurons associated with that action or emotion; This phenomenon allows others to understand what the other person is feeling or doing, according to a study published in the Journal of Natural Science, Biology, and Medicine.

“When your conversation partner smiles, a part of your brain smiles too,” the Fast Company said.

Use your eyes

Dr. Whitbourne advises to let your eyes do the talking.

“Because the automatic features of someone’s gaze by definition can’t be controlled, they can be the most reliable of guides to use even if the person isn’t wearing a facial cover-up,” she said in her blog post.

Your body’s autonomic nervous system controls much of what your body does by sending signals everywhere, allowing you to do things like speak, swallow and react to emergencies, according to Healthdirect.gov.

Dr. Whitbourne said in her blog to trust that your body is conveying the right signals to your eyes that others will be able to interpret.

With that being said, you could most definitely get it wrong.

“Everyone is trying to renegotiate their social world and it will take a while for all of this to settle down,” Dr. Whitbourne said. “It’s important to realize that you, or others, may flub an interaction. Getting angry will only make things worse.”

Eyebrows are important, too

Although your mouth is covered, your eyebrows are still free to boogie.

In 1904, Charles Darwin, a renown evolutionary biologist, hypothesized that facial expressions must have had some instrumental purpose in evolutionary history, a 2013 study in the Frontiers of Psychology reported.

“For example, lifting the eyebrows might have helped our ancestors respond to unexpected environmental events by widening the visual field and therefore enabling them to see more,” the study said. Today, raising eyebrows can mean you are surprised.

When angry, eyebrows form a “V” shape, but when happy, they bend upward into an upside down “U,” the blog post said.

People who are deaf and hard of hearing also use eyebrows to help interpret what others and those who aren’t using sign language are saying, the study said.

A senior from Eastern Kentucky University wanted to make it easier for this community altogether and created a mask that sports a clear panel across the mouth, offering a view of people’s lips and other facial cues, for people who are deaf and hard of hearing, Forbes reported.

Masks with clear panels can also help children and people who may not speak the same language as those around them.

Body language

Your hand gestures, posture and use of space can also help communicate to others while wearing a face mask.

Slouching over your desk can tell someone you’re tired or stressed, while fast hand movements can show that you’re excited.

“These ‘paralinguistic’ elements of speech are important guides to gauging the feelings, sincerity, and intent of other people,” Dr. Whitbourne said in her blog.

This story was originally published April 21, 2020 at 5:56 PM with the headline "Are you having trouble communicating with your face mask on? Here are some tips."