Are superhero masks effective at concealing your identity? In modern comic book fiction, a superhero wears a partial mask to obscure their identity.  This mask is properly known as a "Domino Mask"


Now obviously these masks are not the most effective masks in the world.  However, is there any cog sci evidence that they provide any protection at all?  I highly doubt there's any evidence to show they prevent someone from identifying you, but is there any evidence to suggest they even slow identification down or increase errors?
I don't know of any proper identity recognition experiments using such a mask, and obviously it depends on how difficult the recognition test is. However, here is a paper where they found that sunglasses (and facemasks) impeded accuracy in an emotion recognition task. I would guess that often identity recognition is just as difficult as emotion recognition, so I would assume glasses or a mask would make people (slightly) worse. In general, this is a question about what features are necessary/useful for face recognition. There is lots of research about this, and studies such as this show that the eyes are particularly important. So disrupting this part of the face, and potentially the relationships between them, is actually not a bad way to disguise yourself (though obviously a full-on balaclava would be better!).