how do you feel about the various aspie tests

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does anyone have emotional reactions to them? I really hate that eye test. I took the mini version in the brain sex test thing last night. I knew better but I did it anyway. The eye and face tests really bring up strong emotions for me. This 'reading emotions' thing has been the hardest thing to let go of for me because it was part of my self-definition that I was good at this before I started finding out about the spectrum stuff. I still feel sucker punched when I take them and don't do well. I particularly resent the eye test because I don't really think you can tell much from looking at those photos and I am not convinced that people who do well on them really can. It burns me up.

I find them inaccurate and I don't care for them. Some questions are hard to answer because they aren't black and white and some I don't understand and some are ironic like "Do people think you're aloof and distant?" How should I know? I can't read minds.

Hard to know even where to start. The eye pictures are pictures of actors/models playing at having certain emotions. Then they normed it by asking nonautistic people what emotion they thought it was. So it's nothing but a test of whether you can recognize certain stage conventions. And stage conventions are different than real emotions. Also the test has nothing to do with theory of mind. Otherwise blind people wouldn't have ToM.

The tests mostly piss me off because they are creating their own stereotypes of what an autistic person is like. They not only reflect the stereotypes but since they're used in screening and diagnosis they are narrowing and creating stereotypes at the same time.

I really loathe most of the tests out there. They are all deeply flawed and advance various people's pet theories while shutting out autistic people who don't match them. But then most autism "science" is totally messed up and sloppy.

Oh forgot to say: Many of the tests are testing language skills as much as anything else. I can perceive a lot in body language if I have language turned off at the time. But the tests require language processing so they miss situations like that.

I dislike the eye tests, because they are multiple choice.

When I look at the eyes pictured, my first guess is very rarely one of the four listed. For a large percentage of those questions, I read the four choices, try to use elimination to remove possibilities that it is not, and then guess.

They don't test my ability to determine people's emotions by their facial expressions; they test my ability to use reason to eliminate obvious expressions and then guess.

If I am shown a picture of a person who is making a certain face, and given a list of the words, "happy", "loving", "afraid", and "sad", and I look at the picture, think "I don't think it's happy or loving, but I don't know if they're afraid or sad," and then if I guess between "afraid" or "sad", and if I then get it right, that doesn't mean that I could tell whether the person was sad or afraid. It just means that I thought that they weren't happy or loving. Eliminating some of the possibilities and then guessing isn't the same as being able to read that particular expression.

I look for several minutes and have no idea about what expressions some of them are.

A better way to do the test would be to ask people to enter the expression pictured, and then at the end of the test present a list of what the expression actually was, and ask them if the word they entered meant the same or similar thing to what the expression actually was. and check the number that were right.

Net-tests? They're only for fun

i think they are useless unless you do the tests before reading up on Asperger's (ie not knowing anything about the disorder). they are not very indicative once you have read up on the traits, impairments and characteristics of people with Asperger's.

that's probably true. I did the eye test before I ever knew about this and boy was I blind-sided by my result. It was a bit traumatic.

I always wonder if those tests are really testing what the designers think they are testing for. It seems like the entire basis is off.

That is, it seems to me that people give off 2 layers of communication -- the intentional 'surface' layer, and then under that what they're really feeling and giving off unconciously (or un-intendedly, anyway). I seem to miss the surface layer, but pick up on the one under that. Which can lead to problems, as I'm not engaging in what the person wants me to (especially if they're trying to cover something up -- feeling bad but not wanting to bring it up, etc.) Anyway I have no idea if I'm explaining that so it makes sense.

That 'eyes' test seems to be looking for the intentional layer. So I guess they are testing for what they're looking for -- but I don't think they realize that second layer even exists, let alone that (it seems from what I read people say) autistics can pick up on it, maybe even moreso that usual. In fact, maybe even moreso because of missing the surface layer.

So you might be able to sense things about people, but not on the channel that the test tests for. That might be why the test is annoying -- it's saying if you do badly at it you're not really sensing things about people -- but that conclusion could be wrong.

I find that the eye test is very intimidating.

They're a good time waster but some are so freaking long and boring. I stopped taking the sex test at part II.
I read eyes better in the test, but when I'm actually face to face with people it's harder. The background noise, the nerves, and trying to follow what they're saying and coming up with things to say just make it just a bit more difficult to even remember what the eyes are meant to be saying.

Im bipolar, borderline, with social anxiety disorder. Im on the board because my grandson is autistic. I have one true autistic trait, I hear everything. I test aspie all the time using those tests. But Im not aspie. A lot of my symptoms will create false positives on those tests. Like rocking or not looking into peoples eyes. I thought I was good at reading peoples faces, but I didnt do well on that creepy eye test. My neurons arent crossed they are just chemically challenged.

The ASQ and the RODS Aspie quiz are both better descriptions of AS symptoms than the current (or future) DSM criteria, that's for sure! I was very skeptical and unsure of my diagnosis at first. I didn't connect with AS other than the special interests. That's because all I ever heard about were stereotypes. These quizzes were what really opened my eyes that I am 100% Aspie, in addition to Tony Atwood's Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome. Almost every question on the ASQ and Aspie quiz describe my life.

the eye test... i always have a different interpretation of what the eyes are saying but it's never in the multiple choice answers.then there is the "slightly agree" and "slightly disagree" choices. to me they mean the same, slightly disagree is the same as slightly disagree to me. thus those tests are useless to me. my fav answer would be "it depends".