Better at recognizing subtle signs of anger?

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I was perusing this neuro-psych article that clearly advocated for neurodiversity principles, i.e. claiming that we process emotions and empathy differently - not that we have such impairments per se. Yet it's still a case of "majority rule", that we're expected to pick up on early and subtle signs of anger and address them / change course before it "blows up". Or else your interlocutor will automatically assume that you're being flippant about their socio-emotional needs, and/or may jump to the conclusion that you're passive-aggressively tormenting them, perhaps to assert some sort of perverse superiority or some hierarchical nonsense.

The one phrase that stood out was, "Neurotypicals may not react well to an autistic person who does not correctly process their anger." ummmm, gee, YA THINK??!?

https://www.salon.com/2021/06/06/being- ... mpairment/

Then it goes on to describe a recent study, which for US was a foregone conclusion:

The study, published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, suggested that those on the autism spectrum find it difficult to accurately identify angry facial expressions when they are displayed with the intensity and speed that neurotypicals find "normal."

So, within a pretty small span of time, we'd have to a) identify the subtle nonverbal sign of anger, b) figure out WHAT it was we said (or didn't say) that triggered it, AND c) change course, e.g. "sorry, I didn't mean to cause any upset, what I really meant was..." with a shocked and contrite expression (which I've done in the past, and it resolved things as far as I could tell...just to reassure them that I'm not some sinister narcissist!)

So, it was THIS passage that resonated for me:

Indeed, this unexpected anger can be mystifying to those on the spectrum, and often seems to emerge entirely unprompted. Morénike Giwa-Onaiwu, a visiting scholar at Rice University who is also on the autism spectrum, recalled how both she and other autistic people often have the experience of communicating with people who suddenly become very angry.

"I would just be really confused," Giwa-Onaiwu told Salon. "I didn't understand where they were getting that vibe or what was happening because I'm thinking we're holding a conversation and I'm not taking up whatever cue I guess I'm supposed to be picking up from their face or their body language." This is more than a mere faux pas or embarrassment; as Giwa-Onaiwu observed, "it puts you in a really dangerous situation" because neurotypicals may not react well to an autistic person who does not correctly process their anger.

I recall reading the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, and how the protagonist, Christopher, stated that he didn't realize his father was angry b/c he was speaking in a low voice. It wasn't made overt, it was ambiguous to him. So he genuinely didn't realize his father's state of mind (much less why - he'd violated some obvious norm of keeping something upsetting a secret.) Whereas a neurotypical would've instantly perceived the low tone of voice as threatening, that the s*** is about to hit the fan unless you proactively acknowledge your slip-up and profusely apologize, and even then...

Of course, when you ASK them what it was, they'll typically say something indignant like "AWW, don't give me that!!" or "You know what you did, cut the crap!!" or "Come on!! Nobody could be THAT dumb, and you're 'too smart' for that."
And then one can find oneself in a situation where we become the object of petty revenge, where the other person turns hostile and vindictive towards us, and engages in deliberately but covertly abusive behaviours, to get back at us

In any case, I digress I tad...I hope that some of my fellow autists have improved in their ability to detect and effectively respond to the more ambiguous signs of anger.

Maestro Jayo,

Thank you for bringing up an interesting point and sharing your take.
I truly mean this btw: I have been more and more looking forward to coming back from my weekend and seeing the new WP posts, and yours was truly 'scratching my itch' so to speak.

My 2 cents would be to refer to the "The Double Empathy Problem"
(tldr: https://reframingautism.org.au/autism-a ... fferently/ )

Why do I point to this? -> Because, to me, not only anger, but all social exchanges concerning emotions and or emotional processing are different with NT or ND peers. I do not imply that we (ND) are missing certain emotions or have others NT peers do not, I has to do with a difference in how we intake, process, give weight (value to) and express them.

Anger as a particularly salient emotion often comes up in personal examples and discussions.
But the underlying reason NT peers get upset with us and we with them has to do with a primordial drive we all have for social-acceptance AND social-understanding. i.e. the frustrations you describe and are illustrated in the article are a demonstration of "translation"-errors: we process, intake data differently than NT peers and visa-versa.
We all (NT and ND) expect to have our partners in the social engagement to "understand" what we are expressing to them. If this fails very doubt is cast inwards for the person communicating, placing in doubt his very mechanisms to communicate with the world of humans. This is such a deep-rooted/seated system that, most people, when a disjunction occurs between this internal-system and their social outside world (ie the partner(s) they are talking with), they get frustrated, angry...

TLDR: My guess; Is to understand this not as a: me missing their "coloring" of the data they are communicating to me but as a reaction to me not having the expected reaction/feedback to their system/way of communication by means of validations they have learned expect.

Dealing with it:
How I have learned to 'deal' with this is by explicitly jumping in directly after they finished making their statements and stating: "I would like to quickly summarize how I understood your situation/story, to allow you to correct where I missed things: " and I proceed to recount a summarized version of their statements/situation, indicating at each topics that: "I understand this to make you feel ...."
It's a technique I picked up in college, called strong- (or iron-)manning, i try and present the strongest version of their story. I found this to be helpful and work about 83% of the time.