Emotion recognition from facial expressions is commonly assumed to depend on the visibility of diagnostic features, particularly the eyes. Accordingly, eye occlusion is often treated as a unitary manipulation, under the assumption that comparable informational loss yields equivalent perceptual consequences. The present study challenges this assumption by testing whether expressive (closed eyes) and mechanical (sunglasses) forms of eye occlusion differentially affect emotion recognition and visual attention. In a preregistered within-subjects experiment combining multidimensional emotion ratings with eye-tracking, participants judged emotional and neutral faces presented with open eyes, closed eyes, or sunglasses. The results revealed a critical dissociation: closed eyes reduced emotion recognition more strongly than sunglasses, yet elicited longer fixation durations on the eye region. Notably, fearful faces with closed eyes were associated with increased pleasure ratings, indicating a reinterpretation of the expression rather than simple signal loss. This fixation pattern rules out attentional withdrawal as an explanation for reduced recognition, as participants attended more, rather than less, to closed eyes. Together, these findings demonstrate that eye occlusion alters emotion recognition through interacting perceptual and interpretive processes. Distinguishing between expressive and mechanical eye occlusion provides a refined framework for understanding how reduced eye visibility shapes social perception.