What is the best way to learn/decode body language?

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I definitely have trouble interpreting expression in eyes (I scored 18 on the eye-emotion test, despite thinking that I was doing pretty good!), and I suspect my ability to understand body language is inhibited. I looked at a book on body language but it seemed so implausible that I didn't buy it. By implausible I mean that I found it hard to believe that the shift of someone's shoulders or the way they rested their hands could reliably mean the same thing over and over again.

What are your thoughts/recommendations for learning how to catch up on these skills? Is there a way to study it that's reliable? Should I ask my NT friends to show me? I'd feel strange doing that.

Thanks!

Good luck with that, if I figure it out I'll let you know.

I can do the basics, crossed legs, folded arms. Touching the face, ears or hair when lying. The rest is a mystery to me.

People have learned over time that the use of body language with me is useless so they have given up, I think.

Here's how I've learned myself:

Life for humans is about survival. Almost all people are doing what they are doing because (they think) it helps them to survive in a direct or indirect way. Actions are motivated in the desire to survive. Actions taken may be beneficial to survival or not, but it was meant to be beneficial.

So people are in fact very easy to read, given that you know how humans survive.

Understanding the world in survival-terms makes you see the "big picture" instead of the details. When seeing the big picture, reading body language comes natural. You understand that people are trying to survive, and they indicate how they are about to do it through their body language. You can read extremely much about people through viewing their eyes. Eyes don't lie.

To get better at understanding body language you have to view the big picture instead of the details. This means understanding the world in survival-terms. It's extremely difficult if not impossible to learn body language academically, i.e. if he rests his hands it means that....etc. You cannot think fast enough for this to work properly, and it exhausts you. Viewing the big picture works.

I agree with big picture. I think of it as right-brain loosey-goosey pattern recognition, rather than left-brain hard analytic.

The best way to learn "xqifgihuji" is to get a book on it.

as an aspie trying to interact with NTs you need to remember several things

1. Slow Down! Your thinking & perception is much faster than theirs.
   You don't understand them because you were done looking, about the time they started the real communication.

2. Think Blurry. Your attention to detail way surpasses NT's therefore you can know they are NOT using that level of detail.
   You're not so much missing things here, your seeing too much.
   But what you don't realize is that NTs are messy communicators.
   You're right about what the extra meanings mean, you're right that they're showing these indicators.
   But you're not right about whether they're currently intending to show those extra indicators.
   So of course we're confused.
   Here is where you simply pretend they like you and they're being nice. If this is wrong you'll be embarrassed
   If you imagine they're being mean and you're wrong, then you've just hurt them.
   Most humans are not being mean because that is evolutionarily dangerous. (see #4)
   My proof? Listen to how often people that don't know each other well will laugh over ret*d stuff, almost like a panic.

3. Wait, Wait, Wait. NTs generally speak first, then tone/color their communication near the end, and with body language even after they stop talking.

4. They change their minds. My observation is that NTs will change their "intended" meaning based on how the other person responds. Almost like "I meant to do that!"

5. NTs never read dictionaries. They learned their meanings from other people. Other people near them. Near them a lot.
   If you don't already know this person you probably don't know what they think they're saying.

It depends on the personality of your NT friend(s) but some would be happy to show you their interpretation of common social signals.

I don't believe body language always means the same thing either, but, I do believe it usually does.

Dr. Lillian Glass is one expert; I've met her and she seemed pretty smart. She's made a living at being a body language expert for some decades so she must have some level of knowledge - and her read of photographs often seems valid to me.

There are some basic facial expressions you can probably find online with a still photo and a caption of what the expression signifies. Body language is more complex.

A trick actors use is to look at the eyebrow area, for the camera. Then they are not distracting the other actor by staring into their eyes but it still appears they are making eye contact. If you find eye contact difficult, you might either try that, or just glance at their eyes every so often, sort of blurring focus for general viewing of their face the rest of the time.

If you look away too often, an NT will wonder "what's over there?" and might even turn to look. They might eventually feel you are not interested in them or in their conversation since something else seems to draw your attention instead.

You might never be able to read emotional content in someone's eyes, but, if you learn to read eyebrows and mouth, you can come very close.

i went in the liebbrary and read books about body language.

try it.

    You are absolutely correct, my dear.
    Body language is like verbal language, it is the changes and clusters that give it meaning.
   Demonstrating only one position, one snapshot if you please, is like saying "mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"
    No tonality, no word structure.
   Displaying only one cluster without seeing the context, the change and flow, and responses, is like looking at only one word.
    No sentence. No coherence.

    So of course, you knew you had a lame book in your hand and did the smart thing.


 I liked this one:

The Definitive Book of Body Language
Allan & Barbara Pease
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Bantam; 1 edition (July 25, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0553804723
ISBN-13: 978-0553804720

    Heh
    They cannot give up body communications any more than they can give up breathing.
    Too inherent, too instinctual, too essential for survival.

That's exactly what it is, but being on the autistic spectrum means among other things you lack the required wiring for knowing these things instinctively.

Couldn't agree more.

Successfully decoding the "body language" is a fugacious gain; NTs usually switch their spinning emotional gears before they've even concluded a "simple" communication. It's eternally indeterminate.

Make wild guesses and hope for the best. That's how they seem to hold up their civilization.

People are often kind of like onions; there's many different layers and subtleties to them, and everyone has their own specific code. However, here's a few basic ones I've learned;

Good eye contact is usually a start, not staring, but looking as if you're engaged and interested.

Not using 'avoidance' tactics when you feel uncomfortable with the intimacy of the conversation, i.e. putting your hand to your face, staring at the floor, crossing your arms etc. People are quite responsive to this I find, and may thing you just want to get the heck away from them!

physical contact between individuals is actually pretty rare, at least until you get to know the person a little better. It might be a little tense to begin with, but if you explain the issues you have with it and get them to ease you in, the end result will be fine I'm sure

Hope this has helped!

As I've noticed, some people here have developed their own techniques.
A WP blogger here writes that she learnt to read faces because she was interested in art (specifically, by drawing faces):
http://www.wrongplanet.net/article409.html

My obsession with photography helped a bit, too, but it works in a strange way. I usually know nothing or very little about what people are feeling at that very moment when I'm shooting, Then, when the shoot is over and I'm alone, I look at the photos and suddenly know that they were annoyed, or shy, or pleased, etc.

I scored 32 on Reading the Mind in the Eyes test (max. 36, AS average = 26.2, did you mean this one BTW?) So, when it comes to static pictures, I'm an expert, lol

On the other hand, in real-time communication I can sometimes be completely at a loss even with the people whom I've known for years and who are very close to me.

OMG. I'm doing it all the time even when I'm interested and comfortable. I mean, twisted legs, crossed arms, fingers always doing something with the face, kind of stimming... never thought about how people take it.

Watch the show Lie to Me.

It's a detective show about a group of detectives who are specially-trained experts at reading nonverbal cues. The makers of the show got advice from Paul Ekman, who is a well-respected psychologist specializing in nonverbal cues. When a character shows a plot-important nonverbal cue, they highlight it to draw your attention to it, and a little while later they explain what it means.

I found it very helpful, personally.