Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test

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My score varies whenever I take the test. Now what does that mean? Now it's just 25, but I swear it was a lot higher when I took this test last time.

27

21

10 i dont look people in the eye at all or pick up body language

I got 25, but i have the same issue with this test, as I did the first one. First of all, it's multiple choice. If I had to wing it on my own without 4 choices to choose from I wouldn't have picked hardly any of them right. I tried to guess before looking at the possible answers, and once again, most of the time my first reaction to what the eyes were saying wasn't even listed as an option. Not to mention the fact that I had to take lots of small glances, because even pictures of eyes creep me out, especially the angry/hostile looking ones. In real life someone isn't going to hold their expression while I look up, down and back again while trying to decipher their expressions, and feelings.

27. The eyebrows meant more to me than the actual eyes themselves.

However, I once did this emotional recognition test where they used the whole face, but only flashed the expression for less than one second, then asked you to identify it. Absolutely bombed it. I assume that if this test was strictly timed, then we'd be seeing much lower scores.

30.

I judged a lot by the direction of gaze and tilt of the head. And I would have gotten nowhere without the multiple choice, because most of the time my first response wasn't even a word. Just a feeling-impression.

I got a 28. However, I spent a bit of time analyzing many of the expressions...(don´t know how long you´re supposed to take?) Well, I decided to take my time. Doing it split second though? Hmmmm. On many of the questions, I felt like I was making a guess, based on logic....(I guess my logic is good, huh!) And, yes, I agree that the multiple choice thing really helps...it points you in the right direction. (For some of them, I would have said "none of the above"! However, having a list of possible answers does point one in the right direction, doesn´t it; it makes it easier to deduce the correct answer).

Sort of reminds me of what I do now with movies. If I think there´s a non-verbal section that I didn´t quite get, I rewind it over and over again; as I keep watching the scene repeatedly, I pick up more and more things, and finally figure out what is going on. It´s pretty cool, it feels like cracking a code.

However, in life you don´t this chance to look at a freeze frame, to have time to analyze the faces...

31

The first 5 pages of the first Chapter of Steven Johnson's book, "Mind Wide Open", on the neuroscience of interaction, are all about this test and the way he did well in it (held onto the flash of first impression, etc).

The first Chapter is "Mind Sight", about ToM. It starts:

"I'm gazing into a pair of eyes, scanning the arch of the brow, the hooded lids, trying to gauge whether they're signaling defiance or panic."

Johnson also discusses Simon Baron-Cohen's research and that eyes test again in his a book, "Social Intelligence", which goes more specifically into the neuroscience details of social interaction cognitive processes.

Plus, I have created a ToM function analysis method for myself that works really well, as a synthetic ToM process for offline processing (after meetings, etc). I can read NTs pretty well now, see what is under the surface... I think I have better ToM than my husband does now and he is an NT. My ToM far outstrips my other social skills.

I was actually expecting to do better than 31 on the test.

Simon Baron-Cohen's research found 412 distinct emotions that can be detected in a human expression (obviously not all distinguishable only by looking at eye pictures). Using fMRI's to image brain activation when expressions were shown to volunteers, they found that the amygdala lights up when scanning an expression, and that non-verbal, visceral pathway produces the emotional gut feeling we get as flash impressions before we have enough time to develop explicit conscious thoughts in reaction to seeing something. That is why the initial flash of emotional impression on seeing the eyes is the more accurate one. If you stare at the eye images for any length of time, ignoring that first flash, your score goes down.

In part, developing an online, real-time ToM includes training yourself to register the impressions of the amygdala flashes and aggregating them, instead of getting distracted by what the NT is saying (which is often inconsistent with what is going on under their surfaces).

19.


Those eyes all looked the same except different faces and the directions of them.

My bf got 16. I feel better now.