Body language/facial expressions

This may seem a little random.  I've been reading some material about body language, in the hopes that I might be able to improve my reading of other peoples body language - something I feel I'm very bad at.  Everything I've read seems to be assuming that you're capable of reading your own body language - for instance knowing what expression is on your own face without looking in a mirror. 

I can't.

I mentioned this to the person who is supposed to provide me with advice & her only response was "most people can".  She also said that she'd never heard of anyone not being able to read their own body language, & that was the end of the discussion.

I can't seem to find anything anywhere relating to this issue - am I really the only person in the whole world who can't do this?  Will I ever be able to do anything about it?

Parents
  • ladynicotine said:

    This may seem a little random.  I've been reading some material about body language, in the hopes that I might be able to improve my reading of other peoples body language - something I feel I'm very bad at.  Everything I've read seems to be assuming that you're capable of reading your own body language - for instance knowing what expression is on your own face without looking in a mirror. 

    When it comes to faces you may or not have a condition as part of your Autistic trait assemblage called 'Prosopagnosia',  (attempt at ironic humour attempt ahead) or more technically speaking ~ 'face blindness'. The basic problem with body language is that many people try to go for the facial recognition patterns first, rather than the 'body-language' itself.

    Keep in mind that about 40% of communication is verbal language , and about 60% is behavioural language.

    Anyhow, facial recognition is rather a specialist subject anyway, consider terms like the mask of lies, theatrical personae, grin and bare it, crocodile tears and smiles and all that, whereas the preliminary subject of body language really needs to be the basic postures and gestures, which is fundamentally requisite in any person to person communication exchange anyway ~ to get the basic plot.

    If you do not have 'facial-blindness' (prosopagnosia), learning the basic body language stuff, will allow the facial recognition stuff to develop as a compensation. in the work one and get the other free sense of things, if you do have prosopagnosia ~ 60% body-language will get you by by proportion better.

    Another thing that might work if you have not got prosopagnosia, is learning to differentiate between the general range of facial hues or illuminations, i.e. dark and brooding and on in stages up to cheerful and bright, which you can do with Youtube still-images of a particular person who runs regular video shows. Perhaps check 'The Anmish' by Maja Toudal.

    The basic gist is to learn to recognise or 'see' the ranges of behaviour and facial categories bit by bit, small steps stylie. Oh ~ maybe watch a bit of classical Shakespearian acting with the real pros being that every word and sentence in involves very set and specific postures and gestures. I learnt loads off of actors in this respect, and those who are very camp indeed have highly exaggerated body language which can make things a-lot more clearer and therefore simpler.

  • I am up for holding still images of facial expressions...next to people in order to gauge their mode....maybe someone should develop the board game "guess who" to relate to people's facial gestures...I.e are the eyebrows raised?, are they smiling?....you guessed right...it is Mrs Brown an she is slighted peed off....

    the depth of your wisdom is as welcome and profound as always....I am being daft and childish as this is my silly coping mechanism.....strategies welcomed.... it also demonstrates extreme lack in some departments of emotional intelligence and I suppose a way of displaying myself as non threatening to others....I am conscious that it is also probably bloody annoying! 

Reply
  • I am up for holding still images of facial expressions...next to people in order to gauge their mode....maybe someone should develop the board game "guess who" to relate to people's facial gestures...I.e are the eyebrows raised?, are they smiling?....you guessed right...it is Mrs Brown an she is slighted peed off....

    the depth of your wisdom is as welcome and profound as always....I am being daft and childish as this is my silly coping mechanism.....strategies welcomed.... it also demonstrates extreme lack in some departments of emotional intelligence and I suppose a way of displaying myself as non threatening to others....I am conscious that it is also probably bloody annoying! 

Children
  • Tho I associate raised eyebrows as an expression of surprise!!! I think Oliver Hardy was a master of this, as he was usually surprised or exasperated at something Stan had done. I love Stan and Ollie!!!

  • ElephantInTheRoom said:

    I am up for holding still images of facial expressions...next to people in order to gauge their mode....maybe someone should develop the board game "guess who" to relate to people's facial gestures...I.e are the eyebrows raised?, are they smiling?....you guessed right...it is Mrs Brown an she is slighted peed off....

    Forget the maybe ~ go for the certainty that Carol Grey developed 'Social Stories' with children's and adult's versions aplenty sometime in the fifties or sixties perhaps.

    Moogle the Google with the topic maybe?

    ElephantInTheRoom said:

    the depth of your wisdom is as welcome and profound as always....I am being daft and childish as this is my silly coping mechanism.....strategies welcomed.... it also demonstrates extreme lack in some departments of emotional intelligence and I suppose a way of displaying myself as non threatening to others....I am conscious that it is also probably bloody annoying! 

    Yes, I quite like the depth of my wisdom too, being that is very difficult indeed to drown in dew.

    As for developing emotional intelligence, learn to be patient, rush not, and pace yourself evenly with deep pelvic breathing ~ as this allows emotional feelings of love to be experienced; rather than reproductive emotions of addictive lust ~ involving competitive social status and status anxiety as a result.

    With the non-threatening or annoying thing, prepare oneself here, deep-pelvic-breathing, you are not threatening, deep-pelvic-breathing, but you do, deep-pelvic-breathing, like many of us, deep-pelvic-breathing, have a few boundary issues. The fact you describe having shut downs is pretty definitive really. The thing is not to go down those rabbit holes too deeply, and learn in a sense to disassociate from doing so.

    In my case, as a weekly exercise, along with the daily deep-pelvic-breathing, I would listen to classical music from O Fortuna of Carmina Burana by Carl Orff, and on through five or six others to Pachelbel's Canon, which I find very moving, and learnt to stay evenly content and calm while doing so.

    When zoned in use (or get your SO to put on so you can use) classical music on any well favourable concert pitch used before 1945, and give Mozart, Bach or else anything a go with harmonic overtones being seriously involved such as Tibetan tonal chanting, etcetera, etcetera.

    Check 'mynoise.net' for unscrambling the synaptic networks perhaps.

  • I was always and still am asked,why so sad? Or cheer up! I usually say rather loudly,I am ok thanks I just look like this..I can assimilate with most of the comments here,I once had a teacher shout at me"bring your notebook here" she was reading out points for us to write down,I was focused on something outside the window ,I took my notebook up to her to see,she got a big shock as I was writing as I was looking elsewhere, she just said,go and sit down and at least look like your paying attention.