Published on 12, July, 2020
I am in the middle of an Open Learn course (thanks Pixiefox for always posting about these. I would not have found this if not for your 3 good things)
It is about animal psychology. (These are quick courses - it's only a 12 hour course)
I was compelled to post one of the slides, because it was about human facial expressions. It reminded me of a test that we can do to test for autism (I have not as yet - it wasn't part of my own diagnosis.)
I didn't do too badly, but also had a laugh at what I put down.
Try to think about what your answers would be without being waylaid by my answers and the real answers. I would like to have split this picture and have some sort of reveal button. But that won't work here.
My answers:
Neurotypical approved answers
I got the two basic ones right (happy/sad) but then didn't do as well as I thought I would. I still think I am right about my two types of anger
1. Watching someone about to slip on ice.
2. They don't slip on the ice.
3. They start to slip again.
4. Somebody catches them.
5. They both slip on the ice.
6. Ankles shouldn't bend like that.
Totally true. I suppose that a lot of us have good 'poker faces' -- having said that, I'd probably bounce my leg up and down more if I had a good hand.
I have a dead pan expression most of the time so I could be all of these at once and the NT's would not know. That's part of the problem in the NT world, so much relies on body language and facial expressions.
Perfectly valid, in my book.
I thought it was the expressions of someone on the loo.
It's good that we all got the first two. The three of us (so far) all said 3 was angry.
I discussed this with my wife and she thinks it is true that I can spot the main two, but I misinterpret other ones.
I felt a bit like you, and then wondered if they just paid an actress to do those faces.
Having said that, my niece is extremely expressive with her face - almost cartoon like, so I understand her expressions (maybe not all?)
I love that! Fake singing! I think that answer will be very hard to top! It's interesting that I put chatty. I think we both did something similar there because of the mouth.
Actually, the happy is more like just a smile people do to show they are friendly and enjoying the conversation. Or like a camera smile. Both of which I am terrible at but other people do it good.
Sad.. Do people actually frown when they are sad? As a little kid people are taught that a frown is sad but I don't think I've ever frowned like that before. I might just become more quiet or I'm crying, etc. I think people only frown like that when they are trying to play around and pretend they are sad to get something (like if you want one of someone chips for example, then they wont give you one unless you act sad...but they know its pretend. They do that in movies I think)
And the angry is again I think when you want the person to KNOW you are angry. I don't think that's a natural face responce. For me anyway.
I think they are all emoji type faces... People know what it means because that's what's shown and taught but Im not sure it actually happens that way. I think the 'test' would be harder if they got real pictures of someone with those emotions (instead of an actor, who exaggerates it to 'emojis').
Or maybe those are all accurate and I'm just unexpressive or doing it 'wrong'.
A - happy, B - sad, C - judgmental surprise? (idk if that's a thing), D - angry, E - fake singing, F - awkwardness
Interesting. I got "happy", "anger", and "surprised". Not without reflection, though, and not with absolute certainty. The last one, I thought was "pain" (in an emotional sense). I found it hard to label the others.