Reading Facial Expression

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I'm interested if anyone took the METT practice test, as this is much harder than the BBC fake smile test.

Just taken the METT test, got 40% like you did.

I really felt I was totally guessing, even with loads of repeat tries I just felt I was picking up nothing. The expression just doesn't stay on the screen long enough, I don't think I consciously noticed anything but a spooky jumping of the features.

I managed to capture one expression by pressing the Print Screen button and pasting into a picture editor. It took a lot of tries to catch it. It's an angry face by the look of it.

If 40% suggests any skill, it must be working subliminally in me, but does 40% really suggest that?

I think it's supposed to be quite difficult. I hear this is the stuff they use to train security people in airports now.

I find it interesting because it cuts out the option to cognitively decipher expressions, due to the fraction of time the expression is displayed.

to me reading facial expressions is harder than gettin blood out of a stone

10/20 on the BBC test.

40% on that odd test.

I fail to recognise anything besides a smile and tears in real life though. People always look the same if you ask me.

It's totally different for me to see an isolated, artificial facial expressions compared to a real situational expression.

I got 18 out of 20 on the fake smile test. I usually compare the faces on the test with other faces I've seen it real life. I noticed the excess blinking when people were really smiling and also I used something I've read before. Look at the side of their eyes for wrinkles.

I scored 60 percent on the Mett test. I kept taking it until I got 100 percent.

I am dxd with AS. I do have difficulty understanding people and their emotions and point of views. I don't know how good I am at reading people irl but I know it helps to be able to analyse the situation. I am good at observing people from a distance, but I have trouble connecting with people in my family. I do not understand them. It is the same way with peers.

I can read emotions a little better on the faces of those i live with. I am best able to read teh facial expressions of my son.

I can work a lot of it out if i am given time and if tehre is no speech or verbal utterances. When I am required to mulit-task -

1. read facial expressions
2. follow verbal discourses
3. watch body and hand movements
4. process the fairly extreme visuals in my brain

- well - with all of these tasks, I am a bundle of nerves and cannot keep up with any of it.
TOO MUCH INFORMATION.

Got 12 out of 20 in the BBC test. I'm surprised I got as many as I did considering how difficult it was! To be honest, I've always thought in day-to-day life I've been quite good at spotting facial expressions an emotions. Though I was left thinking after this test that the difficulty here was lack of context for the expression - though I guess that's an integral part of the test. I'm not sure what it, and this thread might imply about differences between AS and NT responses to the test - though it's a fascinating subject.

As has already been said, I'm hopeless when it comes to spotting if someone's flirting with me, and wouldn't know where to start with flirting with someone else (though that's as much inhibition as anything). I'm a bit at a loss as to why this might be. Rationally it would imply that I must be equally bad at interpreting all body language, unless there's a degree of subtlety not present in other forms. I'm really not sure.

I can't comment on the METT practice test because I actually did the long-version of the training program last year. For what it's worth, I managed to earn 100% at the fastest speed after the training program. I can't remember how I did on the initial practice test, but I know it wasn't 100%. The training course itself is worth the price, I think, especially if you can afford the longest version of the course available (it has more practice runs before the final test). I liked it because it actually said how each expression was constructed and what the essential elements were; if any of those essential elements were missing, it was likely a fake expression. It gives you the opportunity to practice at slower speeds and lets you increase the speed gradually.

The METT was developed by Paul Ekman, who's been studying the connection between emotions and facial expressions for 40+ years. Do a search for his books; you can also get them from the METT site. He goes more in-depth into what the facial expressions mean. I have one of his books that I use as a reference because it really breaks down the different components of the facial expression and what the underlying emotion is.

If you want to really get into the subject, look up the Facial Action Coding System. Ekman was one of the researchers who helped develop it. It divides the face into different regions based on the underlying musculature and shows, from a more "mechancial" perspective, how emotions are expressed. From what I understand the system is popular with some artists and animators because it's supposed to help them create more realistic facial expressions.

As other posters have said, it's often easier for me to recognize expressions, and body language in general, when I'm not actually engaged in conversation with someone. Although I remember one time I went to a restaurant alone and the hostess asked if i wanted to sit at the counter. I asked for a booth and I caught her showing the micro-expression for disgust. I had to stifle a laugh as she seated me.

My reaction to my scores on these sorts of tests is somewhat similar to yours. It puzzles me especially when I score higher than "NTs" I know or even higher than the NT average.

I'm glad tests exist though because despite never considering it a problem before I did briefly question my ability to read people when I was given my diagnosis of AS.

I read the boy in the video's response as the equivalent of "Yeah, Right!! !! !"

I scored 17 / 20 on the BBC fake smiles test. I also managed 80% on the METT demo, and I didn't find it nearly as difficult as I expected - even when I guessed the one I wasn't so sure about wrong it was due to an error of logic not intuition. I persuaded my "NT" mother to take the test and she scored 40%.

Reading faces on a screen is easy for me. Reading faces while conducting a conversation is slightly more difficult when I refrain from making regular eye contact.

I have trouble with subtle expressions. Pretty much anything between the major expressions (happy, sad, angry, etc.) looks blank to me. I took an online test for recognising expressions in eyes once and scored pretty well on it, but only because the expressions I actually thought were there weren't among those listed and there wasn't a "None of the Above" option. Based on the selections offered, I was able to deduce the "right" answer for most of the questions, but one doesn't get to do that in real life.

This is why I don't really like watching television very much any more. At some point in the last ten to fifteen years, actors stopped exaggerating their expressions as much and now I can't tell what's going on as well. It probably has something to do with the change in media from film to digital, but it's been a problem for me. I mostly stick to watching old television shows online or on DVDs now.

Regards,

Patricia