Open Access

ARTICLE

Does problematic mobile phone use affect facial emotion recognition?

Bowei Go, Xianli An^*

Department of Psychology, School of Educational Science, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, 225009, China

* Corresponding Author: Xianli An. Email:

Journal of Psychology in Africa 2025, 35(4), 523-533. https://doi.org/10.32604/jpa.2025.070123

Received 31 October 2024; Accepted 20 May 2025; Issue published 17 August 2025

Abstract

This study investigated the impact of problematic mobile phone use (PMPU) on emotion recognition. The PMPU levels of 150 participants were measured using the standardized SAS-SV scale. Based on the SAS-SV cutoff scores, participants were divided into PMPU and Control groups. These participants completed two emotion recognition experiments involving facial emotion stimuli that had been manipulated to varying emotional intensities using Morph software. Experiment 1 (n = 75) assessed differences in facial emotion detection accuracy. Experiment 2 (n = 75), based on signal detection theory, examined differences in hit and false alarm rates across emotional expressions. The results showed that PMPU users demonstrated higher recognition accuracy rates for disgust faces but lower accuracy for happy faces. This indicates a tendency among PMPU users to prioritize specific negative emotions and may have impaired perception of positive emotions. Practically, incorporating diverse emotional stimuli into PMPU intervention may help alleviate the negative emotional focus bias associated with excessive mobile devices use.

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Keywords

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