Facial expressions

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I'm pretty good at reading people's faces. I've taken tests online and I'm even a little better than average among neurotypicals at seeing what a person is feeling by looking at their faces.

What I can't do is avoid (figuratively speaking) tripping over my own feet in conversation, and making people's faces turn from to or or or or or even ...and it sucks. I'm not good at predicting what people are going to feel when I say something, and I accidentally upset people a lot. It's worst if I'm in an unfamiliar situation and the social rules are different from what I'm used to.

We threw a dinner party with my husband's business associates a few weeks ago and it was awful; I wanted to throw up at the end of the evening. I tried to mostly stay really quiet, and that helped, but I still offended people a few times. I almost wish I couldn't see it in their faces.

Anyone else, or am I the only person here who can read faces?

I can read faces, but can't express them through my face. Most of the time I have a blank face, because my smile is unattractive, mostly...

But I'm either straight-faced or laughing like a hyena

Face reading problem in mild AS is questionable, in my opinion.

I think the source of face reading is lack of eye contact. Hans Asperger considered face reading problems as a symptom. But those statements belongs to 1940's. Lets talk about 2010's.

-Many television channels available in developed countries.
-Video games are so advanced that game characters can display complex face features.
-There is something called ''Youtube''

From my experience, I cannot maintain eye contact with a person; however I can look to the eyes of people in videos (except close ups ) . As aspie children are fascinated by visuals/games, they can easily *learn* face reading from those sources.

So it is like reading a book: The problem is not illiteracy. The problem is about not looking to the pages.

Last edited by Somberlain on 28 Jul 2012, 3:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't know what my face reading skills are in real life because I rarely look at a someone's whole face ... I'm usually either not looking at them while interacting or am focused on their mouth. On paper I'm probably about average.

I was recently told in my report from the autism specialist that my facial expression was remarkably limited. I honestly had no idea about this and always assumed my facial expression was the same as everyone else. But it explained to me why people always assume things about my mood (basically that I'm not happy in whatever respect that they think I should be). Their assumptions are regularly wrong. I guess I have a pretty blank face.

Do you frequently watch videos, films etc. that includes facial expressions?

I'm getting so that I can usually read expressions of actors in movies and television shows. But in real life processing lags way behind the actual event, so that I am left floundering...

Not sure where this question is leading ... but yes I do. I go to the cinema usually about twice per week (my favourite films are usually romantic comedies) and on TV I watch a lot of documentaries about interesting people.

Occasionally when I see people on the news being interviewed as crime-victims, I can tell that they are not being genuine & that they are hiding something.

Every time that this happens they ( the supposed victims ) are arrested and charged with a crime, sooner or later.

I have wondered if everybody can do this?

Thanks for your reply. I wonder if watching videos contributes to face reading skills, so that was the reason for my question. Sorry if I disturbed you.

A couple explainations

(1) You have problems understanding their perspective(in relation to your own) as you move along a conversation(ToM revised) BUT you do NOT have problems in reading a change in their facial expressions(no problems with prosopagnosia).


(2) Your ToM might be fine( with no problems with prosopagnosia )BUT your inabilty to SHOW 'proper emotional affect'(externally) might be causing others to mis-interpret your intentions.

But, here is the thing: From what you described, you showed a full range of emotional responses(internally). You were painfully aware THAT you were not socially connecting. I'm postive IF the situation warranted it(and it possible did); you may have FELT empathetic.

Again, it's a spectrum. I'm not at all surprized that you can read faces. As a matter of fact, it's not listed as a criteria for Aspergers.

TheSunAlsoRises

Within the past 5-6 years, I learnt to read facial expressions on photos and depending on the set-up, I am equally good at identifying them quickly on videos.

I can't read expressions in real life however (excludes acting and exaggerated stilled expressions because these are not usually displayed intuitively) because faces are moving and expressions are changing too quickly, they're also usually ambiguous (non-verbal signals do not line up neatly but may hint at more than one/different states of mind at the same time). Since I can identify them on photos pretty easily, I suspect that my brain's also too busy with trying to cope with everything else (listening to the right source, no distracting stims...) to spend the required energy and focus on decoding intuitive facial expressions in-time.

I intuitively recognise tears, laughs, obvious smiles and occasionally I manage to notice anger before it gets really obvious from someone's actions or words.

I am much better at the predicting and influencing part of interaction. (Doesn't mean that I don't upset people a lot too though.)

I learned to recognize facial eggspressions and mental states from watching TV and reading books. I know the basics. However, I can't apply most of this knowledge in real life, because I can't remember to do it. The idear of purposefully reading people doesn't occur to me during social interactions, regardless of whether I am looking at their faces or eyes or not. The instinct to read people is not there, so I have to explicitly remember to do it eberrytime, and I don't remember to do it most of the time.

The same pattern applied at a moar fundamental level when I was younger. I didn't communicate, because the idear of communicating didn't occur to me.

Interesting theory. I'm not sure ... What I find in films is that there are usually a whole load of other cues as to what is going on for a character (music, lighting, 'circumstamce', audience response etc) which is helpful. And of course if it's a bad film then it's horribly overacted which usually means facial expressions are exaggerates so easier to spot.