 Abstract face masks have been shown to be effective at slowing the spread of SARS-CoV-2, however, little is known about how masks affect social interactions. In this study, researchers examined whether masks impact facial expression communication using drift diffusion modeling, DDM. The results showed that participants were able to accurately recognize expressions of six emotions, anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, with lower face masks, but were less accurate than without masks, and took longer to do so. Additionally, the rate of evidence accumulation was reduced when participants wore masks. This suggests that time-sensitive situations may increase the risk of miscommunication when wearing masks. This article was authored by W. Craig Williams, Aisha Huck, Becky Mai, and others.