The NonVerbal vs. the Unsaid

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The diagnoser gave me the well-known test of "the mind in the eyes". It's unfair, I'll never get diagnosed that way. Because I don't have any problem identifying emotions / thoughts in the face, the body, the tone of voice. When I, Greentea, say that I'm blind to the non-verbal, I don't mean the conveyance of straight messages "by means other than words". I mean I'm blind to the UNSAID. The UNSAID is anything that is not straight, precisely and clearly expressed, either because the person doesn't want to admit it outloud, be quoted on it, wants to hide it, or it's left out because it's assumed to be understood by all.

Doing OK in the Mind in the Eyes test cannot rule out a diagnosis. I've read the study on it and there is great overlap with controls and the general population sample. No one test that I know of can completely rule out an AS diagnosis.

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Outlier, but when all of the tests are unfair, it adds up. The other test is talking to my ex therapist who never heard of AS yet denies with a vengeance that I may have it. And the other written test had the infamous first question: do you prefer to do things with others or by yourself, when it's known that many Aspies do very much want to be able to be very active socially.

Now back on topic, I'm very surprised at the silence on this thread. Is it that the Unsaid is a problem only to me, or is it slow on WP in August?

I answered 'the nonverbal and the unsaid', although, technically, it's the unsaid which I would say I was blind/completely oblivious to, and the nonverbal which confuses me. I.e., I can sometimes find it hard to interpret quite what someone is conveying by expression alone. I tend to think that people are angry with me a lot, for instance, to which they often look genuinely shocked and assure me that they're not at all.

I have trouble with the two, but I would say the unsaid is the one causing the most stress.

Would like to be able to explain why but shrug I don't understand why myself since it is emotional feeling, don't even know if I able to feel if there is some unsaid present or it just my brain going in overwhelmed mode while there is actually nothing.

I am not sure whether I am "blind" as in taking everything literally, but I misinterpret both nonverbal cues (ie. tone of voice since I can't see body language) and statements with "hidden meanings". But rather than interpreting messages literally, I sometimes assume hidden meanings that aren't there.

I chose 'unsaid only' as I definitely cannot pick up on this. Sometimes I can understand non-verbal cues, but it's only after I have known a person for quite some time or if I'm really close to someone, otherwise, yes, I have trouble.

The thing about that test is also that it's not timed and doesn't take into account any strange looks you get on your own face while trying to determine what those eyes mean. If you look at it, furrow your brow, bite your bottom lip, think about it while kinda rolling your eyes back up into your head (I don't know if you do that too.. for me, it's kinda like I'm attempting to look into my own brain sometimes..) then look back at the picture and figure out the correct answer.. well, if it were a real life situation where you were supposed to read it, you'd have failed. Because even if you'd figured out the meaning of the look, your own look would not have been correct. So you'd have managed to interpret the meaning for a test, but you wouldn't have actually gotten it right socially. If you score XXX on a test, it means you scored XXX on a test. You can try to infer other meanings from it, but it just comes down to having been a score on a test.

Happen quite often here also, and having an answer doesn't really solve the trouble sometime if I get feeling there is something unsaid (but like I said I don't even know if that feeling got an actual base or it is just bullock), which basically just create a social stress that will take a while to fade.

I used to never be sure if there was any Unsaid in a specific situation or not. Nowadays I think I've gotten a bit better at knowing.

I wonder if problems with the Unsaid is considered a symptom of AS or if it's just the nonverbal. I think the DSM means only the nonverbal.

Me too.. even at that point I'm still not quite sure that they really mean that they're not upset with me.. or if the genuine shock is over me having asked.

Maggie, I've written that down to tell the diagnoser. I hadn't thought about it, you're right. It took me ages to decipher each pair of eyes and the last ones I couldn't decipher at all. And many of them I'm not sure whether I got them right. I attributed it to the photos being in black and white and very small and unclear...

I don't think I had the "Mind in the Eye" test. Perhaps my neurologists felt it was too imprecise an instrument, as outlier said.

I have problems in all the areas mentioned in the poll (so I didn't vote). Anyone who speaks to me for any duration notices very quickly that I'm literal, professorial, have trouble with eye contact, do not use or react to body language, and am incapable of small talk (or sweet talk, pillow talk, etc.).

I also have a hard time with facial expressions and body language. In films like "The Remains of the Day" I have to ask an NT what the characters were feeling or thinking about each other. I simply cannot tell.

The DSM IV-TR criteria for AS are controversial, as everyone on WP likely knows. They emphasize the "disorder" part of the spectrum, rather than the differences in social functioning. The ICD-10 criteria seem to be a more realistic depiction of AS, and maybe the DSM V will shift in that direction.

They should be using a wide range of tests and instruments to make it as fair as possible; especially because AS in some adults can be difficult to detect. However, many professionals are not up-to-date on this population and from what you've mentioned above, this might be the case here. The tests you have mentioned here are not to be used alone; they are only supposed to be used in addition to a detailed clinical interview, with the interviewers being fully trained in working with the given diagnostic algorithms.



That looks like the AQ. 83% of AS score 26 or above on this. Many AS prefer to do things alone so they include that item. They cannot include items that apply to absolutely everyone with AS, because none do. Overall, the test is quite accurate.



There should be some here on WP whose problems are mostly with the UNSAID, going by the studies showing large overlaps with controls on simple tests of body-language etc., such as Mind in the Eyes.



The DSM criteria aren't as comprehensive as Gillberg's critera, where this sort of thing is included:

4. e) impairment of comprehension including misinterpretations of literal/implied meanings

Is that the test where they show just the eyes and not the rest of the face and you have to pick an emotion from a list? If so, somebody posted a link to it a while back and I did only so-so, and some AS people did spectacularly well, getting only one or two wrong.

I had a hard time figuring it out from just the eyes and not the rest of the face. I find it so much easier to figure out that kind of stuff in real life because you see the whole face, it's in motion and, ironically, the unsaid part can change the meaning of a look.

I can see it now. An NT woman with Social Anxiety Disorder comes into the office and gets an incorrect AS diagnosis because she doesn't do that well on this test (needs to see the whole face, needs to see it in motion, needs the Unsaid) and says she doesn't like to be around people. Meanwhile, you don't. Because you do well on this test. But they haven't yet come up with a test for The Unsaid. And when they do, they'll probably muff it up somehow as I think they've done with this test and manage to frame it so AS people actually do better on it.

When somebody posted that test here, somebody came up with a theory that maybe AS people are actually doing quite well on that test, better than NT in some cases, is because AS people are more likely to have studied photos of people trying to parse out what's going on. And therefore actually have more practice than NT people in figuring out emotion from a photo.

In any case, I definately understand the huge difference between "non-verbal" and "unsaid". But how to convey this to somebody diagnosing? Maybe you could lead them in the right direction by saying you have a hard time with implied subtext. You can tell easily enough if a person is angry or sad or thrilled or anything else on that test. But subtext is a different thing entirely and it's not just what's on a person's face at that moment. It's really about the whole history between you two, about the conversation you were just having, about NT social conventions followed but never outlined outside of sociology textbooks. And it's not tested for by seeing if you can tell a happy photo from an angry one.
So maybe if you use the term "subtext" they will get it more and stop going on about reading facial expressions.