Can you read people's expressions in thier eyes?

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One of the things I found most attractive about my mate when we first met was the way her eyes smiled.

I can tell when someone is afraid of me by their eyes. That’s about it.

very well described

No I can not. I also think that's a pretty "tall order" to be able to read someone's expressions not from their entire face including their eyes, but only their eye region. I don't know if you mean incorporating the brow as well or literally just the eyes.

Even the entire face, unless someone's expression is beyond obvious (e.g. beaming smile - happy, crying actual tears - sad, quivering lip- sad, deeply furrowed brow coupled with gritted teeth-angry) doesn't help me assess someone's mood. Also, in situations where someone is obviously angry based on their expression, I have no idea how angry they are so it doesn't really register much with me. I don't know, for example if they're mildly perturbed or absolutely furious or somewhere in between.

I agree. I need to think through that composite of features in the total expression. Also, most people just look angry or upset to me (or their smile can look kind of evil), even though I know from experience that that's probably not the case.

I can also mistake my feelings for how they feel toward me. Like if they make me anxious I may think they're being aggressive or angry when they're not. And looking at their eyes will definitely make me feel anxious.

What you say is logical. My experience is that people rarely "say what they mean or mean what they say" with their actual feelings, emotions, etc instead being purposely shrouded in mystery or purposely deceptive. With that, I think I stopped trying to "figure out" what a person was thinking or feeling based on their expressions. If it's all one huge guessing game prone to error, why bother.

When I mentioned that even if a person is very obviously angry based on their expression but I don't know how angry they are, the most extreme example of that happened to me about ten years ago at work: The husband of an employee that I had to terminate came into the office to yell at me. I could tell he was angry, but he had a baritone booming voice the other times I saw him previously so I had no idea how angry he was. I sat across the desk without expression (typical). This apparently made him more angry but it wasn't registering with me as to how upset he was. He finally said something to the effect of being so angry with me that he wanted to punch me in the face. See, THAT made sense to me. I can understand spoken language. I think the world would be a better place if everyone "said what they meant and meant what they said".

Last edited by Magna on 04 Dec 2018, 3:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

^^

Oh yeah, I get that, as far as needing clear, verbal language. I also have an issue with telling the severity of feelings--it's like anger is anger, sadness sadness, etc., though I know that's not really the case.

Because you wrote this I just searched some of them. I'm a bit below average with this. But the pictures have the problem that they are still images and you don't know the default facial expression of the people that they show if they are more relaxed nor do you know the situation when the picture was taken. This makes the things harder.

Some other tests about facial expression have even more problems because they are that kind of artifical that the mood of the people don't even fits the expression that they wan't to show just for this pictures. It's are rather typical fake faces of NT people who try to fool others about their mood. And they show mixed races.

There are several differences in facial expression between people of different regions and races and because of this you have to know some people of the different races and cultures to get them right. Asian people for instance are quite different to Northern Europeans once it comes to facial expressions.

Because NT's try to fool others it's a good thing to learn to read the language of the body that people show beside their facial expressions. It's much more honest and tells often a lot more than facial expressions.

I also score average to above average on the multiple choice online eyes tests. But real life is multiple choice, and it's hard to read another eyes expression when you can only look at someone's eyes for about 1/10th of a second before you have an incredible urge to look away. Looking away (or worse yet soldiering through the horrible feeling of looking at someone's eyes and completely losing track of the entire conversation) does not help read someone's expression.

Myself personally, i find it very difficult to read people's non verbal expressions, no matter how hard I've tried over the decades.

I can't do this. I find watching the other person's mouth is more helpful because you can see them smile (if they actually do that.) Looking at people's eyes makes me feel bad.

This. I usually forget to try to make eye contact or even look like i make eye contact and just look in the general direction of the person I'm talking too.