Interesting autistic test I did today

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Hi,

Today I had a test done by a medical professional.
Amongst other things the test was to see how well I can interpret the emotions that a person is feeling from a picture of their face.

The way it worked was that I was firstly shown a cropped version of a larger image where just 1 individuals face was shown. I was asked what emotion the person was feeling.
Then the image was uncropped to show the actual FULL scene, and I was asked again.

IT WAS VERY DIFFICULT, and I didn't do as well as I thought I would.
As an example in one image I was shown the face of a man. I said that he was laughing but slightly anxious. When the image showed the FULL scene he was actually having an argument with a woman. Even when I was shown the uncropped image I still considered that the man was laughing. Maybe he was laughing at her and that's why she was getting annoyed.

There was also another image where I didn't know what emotion the lady was feeling. When it was uncropped I was baffled. It was of one woman giving another woman a kiss on the cheek. The woman giving the kiss looked very happy, but the woman receiving the kiss looked very sad. That didn't make sense.

I discovered that in order to determine the emotions that I felt that the individuals were feeling I compared the image of each face with 'snapshots' of simular faces I had either seen in real-life or in movies. When I found a 'match' I would recall the situation occuring to that person, and then apply it to the image of the face I was being shown (like a game of "snap"). Also, to my suprise I took quite a lot of notice of the eyes in regard to the direction of gaze & pupil size. My brain then compared this to what I know about NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming):


Another thing I did was to "break down" the face into regions. By this, what I mean is that whilst looking at the face I physically put my hand on the screen to cover facial areas (split the face into 6 key areas: left eye, right eye, left below eye but above mouth, right below eye but above mouth, mouth, forehead), analyse each one seperately, and then combine the sections to come up with my interpretation.

Basically, how I did the test was very much like how facial recognition computer software works; comparing a currently observed image against previously stored images in a database: until a match is found. Like a "game of snap" by comparing the 6 main facial areas against previously recorded data.

Maybe that's how everyone does it, but they don't know that is what's happening because the process is on a subconscious level.

Anyway, it was an interesting test.

Has anyone else done a test like this one?

If so, what technique did you use?

This is how I read faces, too. My ability to read an individual increases with exposure.

I suspect everyone on the planet does it this way, with the differences being conscious effort vs. subconscious effort. and speed of processing the information. One would expect subconscious processing to be quicker than conscious reasoning. But again, this is just a hunch; I've not read any studies on this mechanism.

In facial expression tests I've about a 40% accuracy rate, given a 4-choice test (expected random result would be ~25% accuracy.) That is just with looking at photos. I find this very annoying because if I'm allowed context I'm extremely accurate; I estimate that my abilities put me in the mid- to high-90th pct. somewhere. These photo tests are annoying for this fact; they don't account for training & skill. But then again that's the point of the test, so what's an Aspie to do?

I have never taken a test like this, so I don't know how I would perform.

In my real life experience, I look at faces and make eye contact very infrequently, so if I have any capacity to learn how to do it, that is stifled by the fact that I inherently feel compelled to avoid doing it to begin with. I never got the big deal anyway, who cares if I look someone in the face or eyes while talking. The last time an NT gave me grief for looking at the floor, I said back to him "You have ears, you don't need your eyes to hear me anyway".

Of course this offended him and I didn't realize it until later. I thought it was a sensible comment based on truth, but he took it was me "having an attitude".