Can you understand facial expressions?

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I am interested in this, because I would like to know the amount of people on the spectrum who have issues understanding non-verbal communication. I know that it's one of the most important symptoms to do an AS/Autism diagnosis, but I wonder if every aspie/autistic have this problem, or if people who have milder AS don't have this issue. About me, I can understand it very very little; I can only read smiles and sad expressions on people's face; I'm working on trying to understand more of them, but it's really an hard work to do. What about you?

I'm actually very good at this, even though we're not supposed to be. I've taken both the "eye" test and the facial expression tests online and aced both of them. I think that in real life though, I am more at about 75%, because in the real world people don't hold an expession for you and then give you multiple choice. Still, it's usually pretty easy for me.

However, I suck the other way around. People frequently make me aware that they cannot read emotions in my face--that it's either blank or that I appear one way when I feel another.

I can only read some facial expressions and thats when it's really obvious strong emotion that is being expressed. anything subtle I'm likely to be totally clueless about, assuming I'm looking at someones face when I talk to them, which I really hate to do.

From what I understand NTs do this subconsciously while Aspies learn to do this as a skill that improves with practice. As a child I struggled but today at 42 I'm pretty good at it or at least at the major facial expressions. For example I know when my boss in angry but maybe not when a coworker is bored when im talking about my special interest.

I confuse the similar ones, like anger, annoyance, etc. Also with tones of voice, I tend to assume too much that everyone's angry.
I don't notice someone's sad etc if they don't show it in an obvious way, but I think I'm okay at these things, I haven't really gotten grief from not being so good at this.
Possibly because I'm not very social at all so I don't really form relationships with people, haven't tried.
But I don't really look at people's faces that much, so I could be better or worse than I think I am right now.

I can understand some of them. I used to think I did fine with them until I found out if you have to ask them what is wrong because you noticed the look on their face after you say something or do something, then you have a hard time reading them or understanding them. I don't understand why asking is such an issue.

Most of the time I don't have trouble recognizing facial expressions. I'm not perfect but I definitely pick up on things.

If you're trying to measure nonverbal communication there's a lot more to it than just facial expressions. There is the tone and pitch a person uses when s/he speaks, hand gestures, posture, etc.


Even though I don't have that much trouble with facial expressions I barely recognize posture at all.

Tones of voice are the most reliable signals for me. Not only am I very good at recognizing them but if I space out my eyes will shut down but my ears will almost always be active. If someone uses a tone that is angry, condescending, sad, impatient, or something else I will pick up on it even if I'm lost in my own daydream.

Not really. Some seem obvious. Like a smile usually means happy, but then some people use deceptive smiles as well (when we were kids my brother used to smile when he was being mean to me, just to bug me. No, he is not a psychopath). So, I guess even the obvious ones can be ambiguous at times.

I score really well on tests of faces with multiple choice options but when I cover those up and try to just guess by myself my success rate drops pretty dramatically except on really obvious ones. I've also noticed that even on really obvious happy/sad ones NT's can maybe be more specific. Like I'll just say 'Oh that one's happy' but then I look at the answer and it's 'enthusiastic' or 'relieved' or something that I couldn't have guessed.

I understand most facial expressions but have trouble recognizing people by their faces.

On a multiple choice test I can score as high as average.

In a real life situation I can get "positive emotion" or "negative emotion" in most situations.

I answered 'very few', because that's the real life situation answer.

I don't really have trouble with expressions. I can read most of them.

What I do have trouble with is knowing how to deal with/react to how they feel!

I know what a smile is, i.e., happy.

However, I don't know what type of smile it actually is; there's heaps of different types pointing to things other than just being happy.

I seem to miss the subtleties.

I have been forced to acknowledge I am much worse at this than I thought, and answered "very few."

I'm good at the obvious ones, happy, sad, angry, etc, and I'm pretty good with tone of voice, but the more subtle ones like confusion, mistrust, surprise, or veiled emotions that can only be read in the eyes I'm not so good at, they all look the same, like blank staring to me, and when I watch TV and two characters are just staring at each other, I can tell they're saying things with their expressions but I can't read what it is, so I'm totally confused as to what just happened until another character says something to clear it up.
Apart from TV I've never really run into trouble because of this difficulty, although there was a time when my friend, whose boyfriend was in the room talking to her brother, was giving me expressions that she later revealed meant she wished her boyfriend wouldn't talk to her brother, while I thought she meant she wished the two of them would just shut up so we could get on with what we were doing. I was totally surprised when she told me what she actually meant.

I know the basics.