Why Aspies don't READ faces

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Understimulation. Whenever I don't get everything on someone's face or don't see it at all it's because I'm too bored (not just bored; that trivializes it-- seriously starved of stimulation) to pay attention to anything as understimulating as human faces. I need light, I need motion. I have some in my head, so I daydream instead of looking at the faces properly.


How about you?

I don't read faces as well as the NTs I know, but I think I do well enough to get by. I've had two main motivations for paying attention to people's faces and studying the expressions:

1) living with emotionally unpredictable people - by studying their faces I could sometimes tell when their mood was about to shift

2) writing fiction - I've spent a lot of time studying the nuances of human behavior so that I could write about it more accurately and with greater detail

Despite all that, no one can read me. My expressions never match the way I'm actually feeling and there's nothing I can do about it.

Actually, "reading" faces has always come somewhat naturally to me, but no matter what I do, I can't be accurately read.

It came somewhat naturally to me too but sometimes I can't pay attention... not won't, can't.

I often look away from people's faces, never mind their eyes, unless I'm making a conscious effort not to do it. So there's nothing to read.

I don't usually read faces for two reasons:

1. It's easier to ask what their intentions are, even if it's socially inappropriate.

or

2. I'm not looking at their face

LOL

Me neither.

Factually, that's not the diagnostic consensus at all. That autistics do not 'read,' or acknowledge, faces is due to mirror neurons not knowing this construct. As in, the autistic mind has no foreground or background. Further, this is illustrative of lack of Theory of Mind - speculative.

The autistic mind, by definition, is NOT 'understimulated' or bored - the contrary! For me, I cannot get bored. Ever. The autistic mind does NOT need stimulation. This is a 'given' for those in the neurosciences, research, well-versed psych professionals, etc. I think Dr. Tony Attwood states this matter eloquently, as does Temple Grandin.

Just by what is known, OP is wrong. However, that does not mean it's not true for you. But contradictory to what is the autistic model.

I guess I forgot to say: I don't look at faces, especially eyes, since it just does not occur to me to do so. Plus, maybe more importantly, I find this interaction highly uncomfortable - much too intrusive &/or intimate, even scary. Eyes move like running water. Running water overwhelms my senses if I look directly into the current. Looking into another's eyes, for me, is equivalent to looking at a solar eclipse.

'Boredom' is NOT a factor - ever. In any respect (not just eye contact).

I find it uncomfortable to look at eyes and faces.
Eyes - I don't want to look at their eyes because there is so much there that I can't keep it under control, and because I don't want to get that intimate with them and definitely do not want them seeing what is in my eyes.
Faces - because they move around so much and I can't follow it, and so I get distracted by trying to do so and don't hear what is being said to me; also, I know that if I am looking at someone's face, they expect that I am getting the messages (subtext) they send, and act accordingly - and I'm not.

Sounds to me like you think understimulation is the source of all our problems... see your post "Why Aspies are clumsy"



You have other topics saying the same thing. What is your private agenda?

I think she's looking to blame her problems on something, rather than take responsibility for her shortcomings.

...

or maybe she's just misguided.

I tend to look away from people because I can't process that much information.

I'm diagnosed with NLD. Processing visual information is slow and difficult, so I can either talk to you or look at you......doing both wrecks the process--at least to a certain extent.

I suspect I also have at least some slight problems processing auditory information, and that's why my executive function is so poor......the combination of these delays slows me down a lot, and if I rush, I'm more prone to mistakes.

I do best if I can look down or look at a wall so I can concentrate on what the other person is saying and frame my response to them.

I do glance at the eyes and look at the mouth of the person I'm talking to.....this helps them feel I'm in the conversation because that's the way THEY communicate and I must try to respect that.

I pick up on nuances in the voice that are very good keys to what is going on with the facial expression, so I'm far from lost in that area of information.

I try to talk slowly and I think it often appears that I am carefully pondering what the other person is saying.......that has a positive effect with a lot of people, but can be a problem in casual and light small talk. Carefree banter and flirting, of course, are pretty much beyond me.

But I get along.

Some are overstimmed, some understimmed, some all kinds of mixtures of both. I'm mostly understimulated most of the time. And I was afraid to say so because then people would call me a spoiled brat or say I needed to be disciplined, or punish me or take away privileges because I wasn't paying attention. So I said I didn't know why I didn't pay attention. Nobody pushed the issue or thought I didn't know how to read people, except for my mother, and I felt so insulted, it was an assumption she made by reading books and listening to people talking about people who weren't me.

ADD or ADHD? No really, I'm asking this seriously. Were you tested for that or for traits of it (traits can happen without the full blown picture of AD(H)D of course)?

Usually leads to social issues too by of the lack of attention.

Understimulation is indeed not a feature of ASDs. Well, not ASDs alone. Not to say it doesn't happen if someone has an ASD and something else interfering with the ASD. Like, I'm understimulated and whenever I'm not, I'm overstimulated. Fun of having AD(H)D (just traits?) and autism. Opposite forces, haha.

Some times, In order to do... homework?... I need to turn up music, turn on TV, turn on the computer, chat with someone - or else I can't do the homework because I'm understimulated and my head can't concentrate. But at other times, I'll go into an overload by just my cat entering my room, one quiet conversation, one car or once song played in the background.

Maybe you're just a character who needs a certain level of input all the time though. All possible.

But really, not: AS = understimulation. Everything else, yes, okay, but not that, sure.

That's interesting way of describing it. I do like looking at running water. But what it does is it sends me into a sort of autistic "trance". Eyes do the same for me, so perhaps I look away in order to prevent myself from falling into that incorrigable trance. But I think sometimes I look away from faces out of inadequate self-esteem and intimacy issues as well. Faces that feel like exclamation marks or periods (weird way of describing it, I know) kinda make me look away. Faces that feel like question marks or like "..." are "open" enough for me to look at or through.

I often have to judge people by the tone of their voices first before I try to understand their face. I need to learn to inquire about intentions from people. Often I make myself go through a neurotic guessing game or just give up cuz I'm too self-concious to ask about someone's intentions.