Question for Neurotypical People

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So, I recently read that neurotypical people can enter a room full of people and get a general indication of the "mood" of the people in the room. So like, if you entered into a classroom, you could tell if the general "atmosphere" of the people in the room was good or bad or whatever. Is this TRUE? Is this even a THING? If this is true, how would that even be possible! Isn't this really just some sort of myth or something? I didn't even hear about anything like this until recently and it sort of has me a bit freaked out, to be honest.

It is true. It's not really mysterious. If you go into a room and people are talking to each other, smiling, laughing, looking at each other, then the mood is happy and friendly.

If people are quiet, have neutral expressions, are sitting still and not interacting, the mood is serious. Beyond that, one can tell whether the "serious" mood is just people thinking/concentrating (like in a library), angry, sad, or something else by looking more closely at their bodies, faces, what they are doing (fidgeting, not moving at all, etc.) and especially by looking at whoever is in charge (if anyone).

They're just reading the social cues of the people in the room. Their volume levels, tones of voice, facial expression and body language, etc. They also compare that with the expected behavior in general.

For example, a waiting room will generally be quiet, so that seems normal. But, if one enters a party and everyone is quiet and ignoring each other, things seem off.

I'm on the spectrum but just dropping my 2 cents.

Well, I know if a bunch of people are laughing, what the mood of the room is, of course. But if people are in a room and not talking, I wouldn't know what to make of the mood in the room. I guess I just didn't realize, beyond extremely obvious signs like laughing or crying, that one could ascertain the mood of a group in a room. It seems mysterious to me.

I don't think it's mysterious, it's just basic observation skills. Maybe I'm wrong and NT's do have a better innate understanding of reading the mood of a room, but I think they are just observing people's basic behavior.

Actually, I think you put it better than I did. Do NT's have an innate ability to read the mood of a room...like FEEL the mood of the room....we aren't talking about hearing laughing or crying....like in books they'll say, "There was an atmosphere of tension in the room so thick, you could cut it." I always just thought that was just the author perhaps exaggerating to establish tension or whatever......can NT's (and I'm hoping NT folks might respond) innately "feel" or "sense" the mood of a room?

I'd say the very fact that nobody's talking already puts some level of seriousness on the mood in the room.

But I guess that's not quite what you mean either.

It's not what I mean, BUT perhaps it could feed into that innate feeling an NT would feel. Maybe that "feeling" or "sense" is just an interpretation of subtle clues that gets fed back to the brain and interpreted. I mean, I could attribute all sorts of things with silence.....grieving, seriousness, tiredness, despondency...maybe somebody said something inappropriate before I entered the room and the room is experiencing a cold, silent anger...I don't know, I could go on and on. Yet, it would seem, if what I've read is true, an NT can go into a room and feel or sense the mood of the room correctly....and do it near instantaneously....and not just because they are reading "body language"...how do you instantly read the body language of 200 different people if you are in a large lecture in a classroom? Perhaps you read the body language of a few and make inferences on the mood of others, but that would seem flawed to me?

Nope.....the simple answer aint gonna work for me here...I think I need an NT to respond if possible....and give me some understanding here....maybe I'm exaggerating their abilities......I don't know...

Nobody said NTs were logical. It's advantageous to be able to make such inferences, and it's not like they have some sort of magical psychic link or something lol. They literally only have their own sensory information to go off of, therefore it can only be done by interpreting social cues like tone, volume, word choice, body language, facial expression, etc. Sensory information.

They make sweeping generalizations with everything. Little nuance. Why wouldn't that apply here?

I think you're overthinking it. That said, overthinking things is kind of our spiel.

The phrase "so thick you could cut it with a knife" is hyperbole. It's just expressing that the situation was very emotionally charged (if applied to an emotional state, such as tension). It's not an actual thing they are sensing - they are simply interpreting what their senses say about the other people in a given situation.

I say if you walk into a room and everyone is talking and laughing, obviously they are happy and having a good time. Now if I walked into a room and everyone was screaming at each other and shouting and shoving each other and cussing, then that is a fight. They would obviously be mad. I think it would be pretty severe autism if they didn't pick up on this mood.

It's only advantageous for them to make inferences or generalizations about the mood of the room if those inferences proved correct. Also, it might not be a "psychic link", but if they can take social cues like tone, volume, word choice, body language, facial expressions, and other sensory information and spit out a correct "answer" as to what the mood of a room is.....well, for God's sake, at some point you'd have to ask yourself what's the freakin difference? I mean c'mon, you gotta admit, taking such a large volume of sensory information and also taking a large volume of sensory information that contains completely different types of sensory information i.e. visual cues, auditory cues, social/contextual cues and wrapping them up to get the correct answer...that's pretty freakin impressive if that's literally what they are doing.

And yes, I realize an author is using hyperbole about "cutting the mood with a knife", yadda, yadda, yadda. The author *is* implying an ability to sense the mood in a certain social atmosphere. Maybe I am overthinking things....but I'm sorta in awe of this ability.....I've spent years learning how to correctly read facial expressions and the underlying motives of those facial expressions when talking to an individual....and I can do it very well, perhaps better than most NTs because I've worked at it so hard.....but I could never dream of doing something like what you just described....it's like flying in a plane vs. riding a bike...

It generally isn't considered impressive because people do it automatically. It doesn't take a lot of effort; it comes naturally as a person matures. NTs don't do as much work as you put into grasping such information.

That's why *I* think it *is* impressive, assuming that is what they actually do. To take something so many different pieces of sensory information and combining it to effortlessly come to a correct conclusion about the mood of a room.....Honestly, I wish I could keep my scripts for what I've learned as an autistic and than get my brain's "Theory of Mind" activated....I'd really love to know what it's like to be able to do these kinds of things....it's like magic to me....I really can't wrap my brain around it...

Sorry, I apologize to everybody.....I know I'm making a big deal out of something that may not seem like a big deal to others...I'm not doing this to offend anybody....it's just that I didn't understand this was possible until a few days ago and now my mind is sorta blown....

I was pretty darn autistic in my early childhood.

I could tell the general “atmosphere” of a room even then. Especially when there was a “pall” quality about it.

I could probably tell the collective atmosphere of a room. Where it would get tricky is in a one to one situation knowing when I'm boring someone/having a handle on what they might be thinking from their facial expression.

I watched a video lecture that covered some of this just yesterday! Someone else posted it on the site the other day but it's really good so I'll find the link again!

One of the things the guy said was that NT's by the age of 2 learn to sense the 'feel' of a room. They use all the same signs we do, and some we don't notice, effortlessly. We by contrast have to learn how to sense the room and what signals to look for, so we don't get adept at it until we are 8-9. This means that it is not effortless for us, and it actually costs us dearly to have to consciously keep track of everything.

I though it was pretty cool showing the development of these skills and how different it is between the two!

Link: https://youtu.be/qpitsA-0pBQ