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How to cope with not being able to read faces?

Touay

HI.

It's been a rough few days .. and just had a realization that is really sad.

I have seen emotion on a person face twice in my life (seeing someone the way NTs would I guess) ... and I happen to work with the person who was that second incident.

I can see some expressions, a smile, what I call 'bad face', laughter and a baby's crying face .. anything where there is large movements in the face, and I sometimes see when peoples faces are not relaxed, when I assume there is an expression that i just do not recognise.  when I see those expressions, it is only a recognition of the shape, I don't 'see' the emotion in the expressions. (other than the two times)

So this person in whose face I saw emotion (once) appears to be very expressive. but I had not really appreciated what that means until today.  I have long been puzzled about why her face looks so different every time I see her, and even during conversations. I didn't know what it was, and it is very different from the blank sameness of everyone else's faces.

She is from a much more expressive country and I realised today that the changes in the way her face looks are simply expressions that I not only do not see the emotion in, but simply do not recognise.   I has brought home to me just how incapable I am in reading faces.  I just don't understand how I am supposed to interact with people when I can't see the expressions on their faces, not to mention never seeing the emotion behind those expressions.

Any suggestions about how to navigate any kind of meaningful relationship with this 'issue' would be appreciated.

  • in reply to Touay

    Well it stands to reason that if they had previously used it in discussion, then it is agreeable and familiar to them, you can’t call it original to do that, but they will appreciate the callback all the same.
    I used to work with a guy who was mute as a result of his anxiety, no matter how many original statements I made, he just lacked the confidence to retort. So instead and in the name of being nice, I just said the same thing everyday, a rhetorical question that I didn’t look to have answered, eventually the guy just said it back because he had become familiar with the greeting, as he had been given the opportunity to observe me so-much that we made an agreeable procedure out of it. 
    But the fact the guy was mute had no bearing on our interaction, because we communicated on a non-declarative level, I could eventually tell that he had a specific-issue based on whether answered in a more or less complicated or standard way. I can’t say that I ever looked him in the eye in conversation, because the nature of his spared-cognition, meant that more direct-affection made him more insular.

  • in reply to DeSpereaux
    DeSpereaux said:
    I look for a phrase or action that is agreeable to the other person,

    and there is the problem ... how do i know if something is agreeable to them?

  • The best way to navigate the world of affective communication, with a social impairment that has not spared you an understanding of a particular kind of cognition, is to use what has been spared in your cognition.
    In those with autism a commonly spared function exists in both procedural and rote memory-learning, that is to say that you will learn and memorise better by following others example and building procedure in your head, both are non-declarative alternatives that work for most autists.  
    So for example whenever I enter into a new relationship, I look for a phrase or action that is agreeable to the other person, and then I proceduralise it. So I’d always high-five a person in passing who has chosen to high-five me before, or I would use a phrase that another has used to greet me before and greet them that way, or I will use adapt a procedure by using smoother version of it overtime. In doing this most laymen will not pick-up that you are trying to avoid a novel communication or interaction, only the professions or extremely-insightful with be able to observe a well-practiced routine for what it is. 
    The reality of autism is that is a little-known and little-considered impairment, as such there are thousands of quirky individuals out there with some really well-perfected coping mechanisms, as we aren’t really protected as we should be, the peaks that we achieve in the use of spared-function are unique because most people don’t need to use a more basic communication, so they are usually not very aware of people who use these abilities.

  • in reply to Iain

    thanks Iain, but that book seems to be about not being able to tell faces apart, like recognising your mother, rather than not being able to recognise expressions.

  • Touay said:
    I just don't understand how I am supposed to interact with people when I can't see the expressions on their faces,

    If you are open to disclosing your autism then I would straight up say to them something like:

    "I hope I haven't offended you previously but part of my autism involves me having Prosopagnosia which means I have real problems in understaning what you mean by your facial expressions.

    Please don't take offence if I don't get your meaning in future - it isn't something I can control and I would hate for it to affect our relationship."

    If you don't want to disclose your autism then you can always learn what you can about it so you can then conciously read a face when you need to (I'm not sure you can train this to be automatic).

    You can find out more in books like:

    Prosopagnosia - When all faces look the same - Davide Rivolta (2014).pdf
    ISBN 9783642407833

    I can't offer any tips from experience though - I do suffer from this a bit but I've stopped worrying about it (one benefit of old age I guess).