Reading body language and empathy seperate?

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One of the things that is most un- aspie like about me is that I think that I am good at reading body language, at least the basic emotions people are exhibiting. But, people say I don't have much empathy, my husband says I don't put myself in his shoes, and my aunt says I dont respond correctly when I hear about the problems of others. But these may be sepereate issues. Clarification?

I think they are separate. You can read body language but you may not know how to respond to it. That is probably what the issue is. You might also not be able to identify emotions in yourself very well. I know that I struggle with that. So if you have a hard time identifying them in yourself it might make it hard to relate to the emotions of others. So even if you recognize the body language, if you don't have a real grasp on emotions and how they feel, you might not be able to know what to do with the signals you are reading in others. That would be my guess. Hope that helps. Even if I am off maybe that can give you some ideas for a place to start to possibly understand.

I asked my husband and he says that reading body language is how you get yourself in others shoes so to speak. He says that I act like I totally disregard body language when I talk to him or others, but he thinks I just need practice.

That is interesting. I never considered that. Practice definitely helps though.
I am not an expert in reading body language, I can read it if it is very obvious, but I really miss the subtle stuff. I am also extremely and sometimes overly empathetic in some cases but in others I miss the boat completely. But when I am empathetic, I don't think it's only because I am responding to body language. There are times when I can respond extremely empathetically with someone from an reading an email. So I don't know. I do think that reading body language is a help but I think there is more to it than that.

I can recognise body language a mile away, without having to think logically, it just feels more of an instinct, like breathing.

I can recognise my own emotions so I can obviously relate to other's emotions. I also rightly assume how someone will feel at most things I say, so I'm able to filter out what I can and can't say. I find being blunt very hard. I do try to sugarcoat everything. Most Aspies say that they feel guilty for lying to someone to save their feelings, but I'd feel more guilty being blunt and hurting their feelings.

I can only seem to grasp it from afar. As soon as I am doing it up close, I lose it completely.

I can recognize basic emotions relatively easy. This skill both is and isn't empathy;
There are 2 types of empathy: one type lets you recognise emotions and "put yourself into his shoes"; those on the spectrum have no trouble here and are often better at this than the average NT.

The second type is how you act on this information: how do you respond.
This is where the "empathic difficulties" of the autistics are located: we (usually) know what you are feeling, but have no clue about what we are supposed to do

This raises an important point about autistic traits/symptoms. The saying "disability is not inability" (whether or not you think autistic traits are a disability) is relevant here. You may think your are are able body language, that is because you can, but the your ability do so may less then most NT's thus causing communication difficulties. Same idea with understanding others point of view.

I am similar to skibum in my body language reading abilities. I do think bieng in my own world, poor ability to multitask causes me not to be paying attention to the other persons non verbal communication.

Empathy is related to emotions and understanding emotions. Body language is a communicative skill. You dont have to "feel" anything to understand body language, though feelings are often expressed through body language. (that is my attempt at a rational answer). Thats a very good question. Im not sure of my answer but it sounds good.

I couldn't find a way to articulate what you said, even though that is what I wanted to say. But even so, I do have trouble with body language as well as reading emotional states.

I'm pretty bad at body language and have little to no empathy, but I tend to think they are separate issues.

Reading body language is separate from having empathy. There are two different neuronal systems that interact. In fact, it exist two kinds of empathy: affective and cognitive empathy. Affective empathy involves attachment, emotional contagion, desire to helping others, caring for others, maternal behavior, mirror touch synesthesia. Cognitive empathy involves reading body language, understanding others mental state, fitting in social scripts, ability to arguing, negotiations, managing conflicts. It is known also as theory of mind. This kinds of empathy acts separately or together. Typical people are in balanced in this kinds of empathy, and these acts together. High functioning people on spectrum have a strong affective empathy but lack cognitive empathy. In contrast to this, psychopaths have a strong ability of cognitive empathy, but lack affective empathy.

There are two articles that explain this

http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/tpr/vol59/iss3/9/

http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/tpr/vol56/iss1/1/

Personally, I have strong emotions, need for attachment, I get overwhelmed and sick when I see others pain, I love and I have compassion for children, elderly people and animals and I pick up a large variety of facial expressions. But I have trouble in understanding others mental perspectives, and I'm unable to negotiate, manage conflicts. In fact I hate and avoid conflicts and I don't understand the sense of competitiveness. I don't fit in social scripts such hierarchy or gender scripts, but I learned many of them like when I learned Windows 8.1.

I am the same way. I have trouble with cognitive empathy, which is perspective-taking or putting oneself in another's shoes.
It has to do with imagination, and being able to think of how others might feel.

I have emotional empathy, which is more or less having a feeling of sympathy or shared feelings when you can see or know that someone is hurt or feeling a certain way. It's almost like how it usually feels painful to see someone cut themselves. It's related to mirror neurons in the brain from what I remember, but I could be wrong.

I care very deeply about how others feel, get emotional during tv or movie watching, get emotional when reading books. If I can see or understand someone's feelings, I am more empathetic than most normal people. I am also very emotional.

But I do not automatically consider another's feelings and have trouble imagining how someone might feel in a situation, unless I have experienced it myself. So if someone can not show or describe their feelings to me, I seem very cold and callous. I will often be inconsiderate as a result. It's hard to deal with for myself and for others.

It sounds like you may have trouble with higher-level theory of mind.

There are three distinct things that are often called 'empathy'.

The first is an emotional reaction more appropriate to your perception of someone else's situation, rather than your own. For example, if you believe a loved one is unhappy (whether they actually are or not), you feel unhappy. This is unaffected by autism.

The second is an ability to perceive and interpret nonverbal cues, such as eye gaze, facial expressions, tone of voice, etc. This is usually affected by autism, but probably not in your case.

The third is a cognitive ability to analyse your own and other people's thought patterns, to predict what they'll think or feel based on inferring what they are likely perceiving, and to understand the connection between your own perceptions and understanding of the world. This is also usually affected by autism, but I personally don't have trouble with this.

He's wrong. He just automatically, when reading body language, 'gets it'. His unconscious is doing multiple steps for him so he only perceives it as one step.

I am like you. I am missing the step from logically understanding it to being able to experience it in myself. I don't know how practice can get me anywhere with that. I just don't experience others experiences internally at all. What you -can- practice is faking the correct response, but that's hardly desirable in what's supposed to be an honest relationship.

Aren't reading body language and ready emotions separate?