SilverSolace
Blue Jay
Joined: May 11, 2011
Posts: 77
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 Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 3:32 pm Post subject: |
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This thread has been enlightening.
If I'm correct, the direction of the head/eyes [tilting head up but eyes going down, versus head tilting down and eyes going up, etc] plays a part in expression as well.
While this helps me understand how NT may express themselves, it makes it increasingly tiring to be around them because it's just more rules and factors I have to add into the "simulator/database" that I 'run' whenever in a social situation. More things to have to pay attention to.
Eh, it is kind of exciting when I do find out stuff like this, though. |
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AardvarkGoodSwimmer
Phoenix
Joined: Apr 27, 2009
Age: 50
Posts: 4906
Location: Houston, Texas
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| Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 8:03 pm Post subject: |
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| SilverSolace wrote: | This thread has been enlightening.
If I'm correct, the direction of the head/eyes [tilting head up but eyes going down, versus head tilting down and eyes going up, etc] plays a part in expression as well. . . . |
I think that is part of the larger context, understood in a loosey-goosey, right-brain type of way. |
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JoeRose
Pileated woodpecker
Joined: Dec 23, 2011
Posts: 185
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| Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2012 6:39 am Post subject: |
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I like your viewpoint there Karilyn. About refusing to believe that you're incapable of anything. It ties in with my view that it's important not to let a diagnosis define you. I think throughout my life (if and when I get diagnosed) I will constantly try and break the boundaries of it.
But yeah I definitely believe you can kinda get a system for working out peoples emotions. I realised after a while that I could perform well in that test if I scientifically analysed the eye movements and positions. I had to think really hard and relate the pictures to previous experience rather than a natural instinct which we are meant to be given. It becomes easier if you approach the test scientifically. But I guess that's the difference between someone taking it who is NT and who is on the spectrum. The NT will just "know" the answer whilst someone on the spectrum has to put a lot of effort in to scientifically figure out what emotion corresponds to what picture.
Here's the test if anybody else is interested:
http://glennrowe.net/BaronCohen/Faces/EyesTest.aspx |
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impulse94
Blue Jay
Joined: Sep 13, 2011
Posts: 84
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| Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2012 12:01 pm Post subject: |
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Amazon - The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression by Gary Faigin
This is one of the most valuable references I have ever gotten. Both for being able to produce the needed expression on the page, and for reading them in real life.
Here is one of the reviews:
Yes, this is a book meant to be used by artists and enthusiasts, and it is good for that. I am using this book in another way. For people with NLD (Nonverbal Learning Disorders) and on the autistic spectrum (Pervasive Developmental Disorder(PDD), Autism and Aspergers) it is an invaluable instructive tool for teaching how to read facial expressions, and how we use our musculature to form these expressions. I'd been searching for a book like this for years, but was looking in all the wrong places: psychology, social skills, spectrum disorder studies, and psychiatric tomes directed toward the therapeutic community. Then I found this book, serendipitously, at an art store. I am so grateful! My son has high functioning autism, and is terribly frustrated trying to understand non-verbal and social language cues. This book satisfied him in every way, and he now studies it. Not only is he learning the difference between subtle facial expressions, but he is learning how these expressions are made, physiologically. He is becoming more expressive himself, and more able to understand the clues of every day social interactions. I have given this book as a gift to Speech/Language Pathologists who deal with Pragmatic Language skills, to Occupational Therapists, to psychologists and psychiatrists who run social skills groups to help kids and adults navigate the social maze, and to my nephew, a professional clown (on the order of Bill Irwin and Jeff Hoyle, not Emmet Kelley) who is fashioning an act involving social cluelessness (a very common subject in commedy, when you think about it). For these reasons, I highly recommend this book to professionals and parents who are the mentors, friends and teachers of NLD and spectrum disorder people and those people themselves. Terrific. I give it the highest possible marks. |
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Smartalex
Toucan
Joined: Apr 12, 2012
Age: 28
Posts: 259
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| Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2012 7:52 pm Post subject: |
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Oh man, eyes are so important for reading people.
Karilyn, I skimmed most of your post because it would take me a couple of hours to read it all. What I skimmed was really good.
Texas Hold Em, Players keep their eyes down, wear hats or the amazing crazy ones can "lie" with their eyes.
Right handed people:
-look to the right when going from memory (what they believe to be true-> most likely telling the truth), unattraction
-look to the left when going to the 'thinking'->most likely lying boldly. Also shows attraction.
-looking down left then down show embarashment, and/or very attracted to.
Left handed people: the reverse^ |
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Smartalex
Toucan
Joined: Apr 12, 2012
Age: 28
Posts: 259
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| Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2012 7:54 pm Post subject: |
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I'm NT and I mess up ALL the time 'reading' lefties in texas hold em because I have to cognitively check for hand dominance and then reverse the eyes and meaning.
I mockingly accuse my left-handed cousin of being sinister (latin for evil) because I get caught up in reading his eyes and I loose track of the game! |
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pensieve
President of Gallifrey
Joined: Nov 19, 2008
Age: 27
Posts: 7449
Location: Sydney, Australia
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 5:02 am Post subject: |
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Hmm interesting. I was actually watching a 2 year old child's eyes today flicker from one side to the other. I hardly do that unless I turn my whole head with it.
Eye contact is pretty damn hard for me and full contact can send a chill up my spine but I'll try to see what focusing on the muscles does. The scientific research says when some autistics make eye contact the areas of the brain that light up in NT's don't light up for us. But I shall test out your theory before coming to a conclusion.
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peterd
Phoenix
Joined: Dec 26, 2006
Age: 60
Posts: 1171
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 6:06 am Post subject: |
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| As I understand it, when NT eyes are doing their thing, the rest of their facial muscles are playing along, so that the social dance between people continues. For us, that doesn't happen. Even if we're paying attention to the eyes, the responsive micro expressions don't work. |
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Karilyn
Tufted Titmouse
Joined: Apr 09, 2012
Age: 26
Posts: 28
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 6:50 am Post subject: |
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| peterd wrote: | | As I understand it, when NT eyes are doing their thing, the rest of their facial muscles are playing along, so that the social dance between people continues. For us, that doesn't happen. Even if we're paying attention to the eyes, the responsive micro expressions don't work. |
This is my opinion a week after having figured this out.
Well the micro expressions are still mechanical in nature. I've found I'm having a lot of success in mimicking them, and Neurotypicals seem to agree that I've got it down pretty well. There have been a few times where one of my mimicked eye expressions has been off, but from what I'm being told, even Neurotypicals apparently have times where they occasionally can't read a person's facial expression, so while it's a badly executed mimicry on my part, they just perceive it as being "I don't know what she's thinking," which occurs even with Neurotypicals.
Everybody's reporting that it's like my expressiveness was plugged into an amplifier, so obviously the mimicry is working, as that is the same response I gave when I realized that I was supposed to be reading the muscles of the eyes, not the eyes themselves.
Personally I find now that I know what I'm doing, that eye muscles are a hundred times easier to read and mimic than tone of voice, which I had gotten a fair bit of control over around age 21 or so. I've almost stopped trying to read people's tone of voice entirely because it's so much harder than eye muscles. Tone of voice requires me to pick up on pitch shifts and stuff. Whereas the eye muscles is purely an exercise in height/width ratios, angles, and shapes. Elementary geometry. If you think of it as geometry, it's not that hard.
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nat4200
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 8:10 am Post subject: |
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Redacted
Last edited by nat4200 on Thu Apr 19, 2012 4:44 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Karilyn
Tufted Titmouse
Joined: Apr 09, 2012
Age: 26
Posts: 28
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 8:59 am Post subject: |
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| nat4200 wrote: | Sorry, I've have been trying to follow along. But do you mean "microexpressions" as in: https://face.paulekman.com/face/default.aspx ?
I was under the impression that most NTs were not perceptive of those. |
That wasn't what I meant, and I do not believe it is what Peterd was referring to either. By microexpressions, I meant it as the opposite of macroexpressions. IE, big and small expressions. Gesturing and waving of arms is macro, as is a smile or a frown. Micro is aspects of expression which are smaller in detail, like subtle muscle movements; it's the things which refine the concept of "This person is happy" and makes it easier to separate this into things like... love, contentment, joy, pleasure, pleased, excited, facinated, and other variations of the concept of "happy" which appears to be communicated largely by these subtle muscle movements.
I understand now that you possess a vocabulary word which was not in my vocabulary, and apologize for using the term microexpressions incorrectly. I was not and still am not referring to microexpressions, and will not refer to them at any point in this post.
It is my understanding that NTs do perceive these shifts in muscle movement (not microexpressions) around the eyes and face , but only on an unconscious level. It is also my understanding, that all people, both Neurotypical and Autistic, can learn to perceive these on a conscious level. The difficulty for Autistic people comes in that we don't appear to be able to process these subtle muscle movements unconsciously, and have to take a conscious effort to learn what they mean, and then read them. Neurotypicals can do this too, but they usually don't have a need to, unless they are like, poker players, or artists, or other people who need to be able to consciously understand what these movements mean.
| nat4200 wrote: | | Karilyn wrote: | | Tone of voice requires me to pick up on pitch shifts and stuff. Whereas the eye muscles is purely an exercise in height/width ratios, angles, and shapes. Elementary geometry. If you think of it as geometry, it's not that hard. |
Tone is something I have down (to some extent), it's often more about recognising when to match it and when to offset it, more than actually labelling the emotion it represents. I think I mostly go off that, analysing what people say, situation context/backround info, patterns of behaviour and to a small extent what 'expressions' people do with their mouth area (lips, tongue, etc.) |
Oh yeah, that's really what I do too, and it's really kinda a fun puzzle to work out. Piecing together all the little bits of context to figure out what these Neurotypicals are thinking inside their brains. Even though I love my girlfriend, I often consider her to be my own personal little lab rat for me to observe and examine and poke and prode to figure out how a Neurotypical's brain works. I figure that having my own personal Neurotypical who's mind I can play with on a regular basis will help me derive more complex patterns than meeting different Neurotypicals on an irregular basis.
(Can you tell that my Autistic obsession / special interest thingy, is Neurotypical brains and Neurotypical social structures? Makes me feel like Jane Goodall.)
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nat4200
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 9:26 am Post subject: |
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Redacted
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Dillogic
you know how it goes
Joined: Nov 25, 2011
Posts: 3328
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 9:28 am Post subject: |
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FYI and all,
It's a visual processing problem in autism, and the more complex the structure (not many things more complex than the human face), the harder it is to look at, so "we" look away. Easy to replicate and test by looking at 2D images and video of people, which don't cause the discomfort that looking at a 3D person does.
If it hurts, you tend to avoid such. |
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nat4200
Phoenix
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 9:39 am Post subject: |
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Redacted
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YorkeRK
Emu Egg
Joined: Apr 15, 2012
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 9:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Thanks for posting this, helped me a lot. I never thought to take significance in muscle movements around people's eyes. I think I always assumed it was a quirky thing a lot of people did. I guess I don't make many of these gestures, which would probably explain why some people find it hard to tell if I'm being humorous/sarcastic or serious. |
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