Feelings in eyes test

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I just took this test for understanding feeling from eyes.

http://glennrowe.net/BaronCohen/Faces/EyesTest.aspx

Here is the interesting thing, I've always thought I wasn't bad at understanding how others feel, but my wife tells me otherwise, she is proven right in real world situations but somehow I still think I do ok. I took the test and started to think it was pretty easy, then I realized I'm looking at the options and picking the best one. I started to just look at the photo and decide what they were feeling, now I was lost. Most of my answers weren't even an option, though once I saw the options I scored quite well. I don't think I should be given multiple choice tests ever to find out what I can do, it's like my autistic superpower to puzzle out the best option on a test. Leave it blank and I'm at a loss here, show me options and I use almost 40 years of awkward mistakes to puzzle out an answer.

My worst flubs, I thought #31 was flirting with me and #34 seemed amused, perhaps I'm not as funny as I thought..

I did better on this than I thought I was going to-- 25 which was in the normal range. I think it's the test-taking skills kicking in that let me do as well as I did-- I was completely lost on many of them, even with the answers, and just guessed.

I was surprised by how often I misread a negative expression as positive-- I think this may be because I don't look at people's eyes when they are having negative emotions?

i scored a 22 When i look at the eyes i have an idea in mind and its almost always listed but the ones that aren't i have to apply each word to figure them out.
Its kinda strange that all the ones i got wrong were women

I got a 24.

Sounds about right. I've never understood how the hell I'm meant to get feelings from eyes.

Exactely, and furthermore when I recognized Claudia Shiffer I thought how she would be aghast, baffled, distrustful or terrified?

I got the feeling of browsing situations I was before. I was responding according what the situation was then.

26

My score was 27, much better than I expected, as it seems I avoided the more extreme emotions consistently. I might have chosen "aghast" were I living in the 19th century.

Funny enough Lissy, I'm having a hard time reading your profile photo. Best I can come up with is expectation, as in the look I often get when I should be saying something.

i'm not sure what i was thinking/feeling though it was probably <smile this time> or something similiar

I dunno... it's all so arbitrary. Who made the test? Did the people really feel that way when they made the face? Do all people make exactly the same face for the same thing? Alan Rickman, for example, has been known to look severely pained while smiling. I look angry when my mind is blank. And I have no idea what Milla Jovovich is supposed to be feeling in my profile picture.

I landed in the average range too, but it was the multiple guess that did it, because I saw most of the eyes as angry, happy, distracted or stupid. Yeah, stupid. Meaning they don't seem to be thinking of anything. How can you tell without the mouth? All the eyes started to swim together after a while, and I found I recognized more actors than I did emotions... at least, they looked familiar. I think I saw Paul Newman, Great Garbo, Buster Keaton (more than once) and... not sure who else. Eh, well.

I recognized Claudia Schiffer too. You know why? I remember that photo from when her jeans ads were ubiquitous (was it the late 80's?). I thought she was so glamorous and wanted to look like her in jeans but never did. I just sighed and looked at the picture and wished I looked like that.

She was not aghast, baffled, distrustful or terrified in that modeling shot. She looked mildly but not overly interested in going to her glamorous destination. Fashion models aren't supposed to be broadcasting an emotion the way that actors are. They are supposed to look glamorous and mildly lost in their thoughts while also mildly interested in the world around them. The idea is to be a blank canvas for the viewers' fantasy of her perfect life if she wore those clothes...but not literally blank. So the model has to give a faraway look in those glamour shots with no strong emotion while not actually staring blankly. Quite a trick, actually.

And that's the problem with this test. I took it earlier when somebody posted it previously and did horribly. I recognozed some of the female photos as modeling shots and had to just guess what the people making the test thought the eyes should look like. But I don't have any trouble in real life. But this test isn't real life. It's photos are of models in modeling shoots (where no emotion is intended) and stills from movies (some of which do have identifiable emotion that the actor is trying to portray). But in real life, there is context. The exact same look can mean different things depending on the context. This test strips the context away and then has the testers substitute their own choices for what they think the eyes ought to mean in a test. But for people who saw the entire photo and therefore know the context, the choices don't match what was actually happening in the photo.

edited to add: the Claudia Schiffer modeling shot is #34. That both I and another poster recognized this modeling shot and knew that in it she was not modeling any of the emotional choices listed makes me call bullpocky on this eye test.

Last edited by Janissy on 19 Nov 2010, 4:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Your score: 28
A typical score is in the range 22-30. If you scored over 30,
you are very accurate at decoding a person's facial expressions
around their eyes. A score under 22 indicates you find this quite difficult.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The correct answers for the ones you missed are:
2: upset
4: insisting
7: uneasy
18: decisive
24: pensive
26: hostile
29: reflective
32: serious

I think I have done this test before and got lower mark. I remember the eyes of one of the old men as they were distinctive. I started of clicking quite quickly but it seemed to get harder. There were about 6 that I had no idea what-so-ever with even with the 4 possible descriptions there. If the descriptions wern't there and i had to say without any options I would have maybe go 2 (if the ones I thought flirtatious were correct).

It is so much easier spending time looking than reading eyes in real-time. Most of the time I don't have much clue unless context is clear and I am looking carefully.

I thought I was doing well as I was doing it.

You make me starting a special interest in these eyes

#1 Young Johnny Depp
#3 Helena Christensen
#5 Nicholas Cage
#7 Christian Slater
#8 Clint Eastwood (?)
#10 Tom Cruise
#11 Andy Garcia
#13 Danny De Vito (?)
#14 Sam Neill
#18 Catherine Deneuve
#24 Christopher Lee
#26 Orson Welles (? in Touch of Evil)
#33 Marlon Brando

Women are way too hard, Sophia Loren, Katherine Hepburn... ? Now I am seeing eyes everywhere
Some are really obvious, and I did not notice before

I haven't done the test yet, I just clicked on your link and looked ... oh my God .... I will try it, but I can't tell what any of them are thinking by looking at the pictures lol maybe if we could see the whole face it would help? Also how do they know (the ones who made the test) what these people are thinking? did they ask them after taking the pictures?

Shadi

I'm the same with these tests. I can easily pick out the best fit from the multiple choice but it never matches up to what I thought was the right answer. I too would look at the picture and could tell easily what they were feeling but then not find it in the choice options. I was also really surprised to find out how far out I was. I was sure it was something positive like happy or excited and all the choices were really negative like frightened or angry

I am done with the test, my score is 25, not as bad as I thought, but honestly I think in many cases I was just lucky to click on the right one because I had no idea. First one looked playful tho, that one I actually guessed right lol.

Shadi