Mask wearing disrupts decision-making ability, Queensland study finds

A new Queensland study has found wearing a mask can seriously disrupt a person’s ability to make decisions, particularly when they feel under pressure, but the effects can wear off in a matter of hours with one simple action.

Mask wearing can seriously disrupt a person’s ability to make decisions, particularly when they feel under pressure, a new Queensland study has found.

Dr David Smerdon of the University of Queensland's School of Economics studied 8500 worldwide chess players aged between 5 and 98, comparing how they played a game of chess both with and without masks on.

After analysing almost three million individual chess moves he found wearing a mask substantially reduced the quality of a player’s decisions.

But the disruption to decision making was also only temporary and players were able to recover from their initial brain fog within four to six hours, before returning to their normal playing capability.

People in Brisbane CBD wearing masks. Pic Peter Wallis

“We found that the early part of the game you’re not playing as well as you usually would,” Dr Smerdon said.

“The data showed masks were more likely to decrease performance in situations where there was a demanding mental task with a high working memory load.

“The decrease in performance was due to the annoyance caused by the masks rather than a physiological mechanism, but people adapted to the distraction over time.

“The results suggest that the effect of masks may depend on the type of task, the duration of the task and working memory load.”

Dr Smerdon said it was important to find out what -if any- kind of effect mask wearing had on the general population, with his initial findings also indicating minimal disruptions to children’s decision making.

“From a methodical point of view, it’s been hard to get evidence on this topic and chess gave us those circumstances as it requires calculation, memory, problem-solving and pattern recognition and has been used extensively in psychology, neuroscience and economics to measure changes in cognitive performance,” he said.

“What surprised me was the level of effect for experts, particularly in very important games, the effect is very large.

“When we looked at just juniors, up to the age of 18 we didn’t find any effects of mask (wearing), and that could be because of the comparison of kids to the overall (study) numbers or maybe because they are just more adaptable.”

Dr Smerdon said understanding the impact of mask wearing could help individuals and organisations, particularly if it becomes mandatory again in future.

“A lot of communities have discussed mask policies since they were introduced,” he said.

“This is something to keep in mind for occupations in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics as well as other professions that demand a high level of working memory such as language interpreters, performers, waiters and teachers.

“For example, education policy makers may need to bear in mind the disruptive effects of masks when designing exam conditions to address concerns about student health and fairness.”