
Can You Read People’s Emotions? - marojejian
http://marojejian.tumblr.com/post/64501763289/can-you-read-peoples-emotions
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lazerwalker
It seems inappropriate to me to link to some random Tumblr rather than going
straight to the NY Times article
([http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/well-quiz-the-
mind-...](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/well-quiz-the-mind-behind-
the-eyes)) it in turn links to.

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stfu
I rarely do this but I flagged the post for that very own reason. That Tumblr
blog doesn't even attempt to add any value to the NYT story at all.

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gmurphy
I score 33/36 on this test and very highly on others like it, yet I consider
myself pretty rubbish at reading people's emotions. Still pictures are very
different to real life - here, I can rely on pure technical understanding
trained by years of being obsessed with art (looking for eye creases, angles
of eyebrows, and imitating the expression in my head), without the distraction
of people saying things in direct conflict with the range of things briefly
written on their face.

I suppose it's a works-in-a-test-setting trainable sort of thing. Thanks,
comics!

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barking
" I score 33/36 on this test.....I consider myself pretty rubbish at reading
people's emotions."

ditto and ditto

I failed on 20, 23 and 29

It might be interesting if there was a pattern to this?

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postfartum
By the middle of the test I couldn't stop thinking that I was being played. I
thought that at the end there would be a paragraph informing me that in fact
most people in the pictures had a neutral expression and that if I got an
answer right it was because that was the emotion most people taking the test
before me judged that person to have.

There is potential for a study about prejudice there.

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Zenst
Interesting though such tests would be better if each question is not marked
as correct or not after each answer. The feedback from positives and negatives
will have an impact upon the following questions.

Shan't say how low my score was but I scrolled up looked at picture and then
scrolled up some more for options to find my response was not even in the
selected replies, though many had related alternatives. Like the look like
they are thinking "meh" which could also be bored or uniterested. But I'm
clearly far from even close to average, let alone an expert on such matters
and with that, what do I know. Though I do wonder if I got a few like minded
people we could by process of elimination get the right answer for each from
the options we did not pick. Least I do wonder.

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DanBC
Simon Baron Cohen also did the AQ test, which is about ASD traits.

([http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest.html](http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest.html))

I score 41 on the AQ test, and 31 on the guess-the-emotion test. Some of them
I knew; others I pulled the face which triggered memories; others I eliminated
obviously wrong answers to get the correct answer.

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advisedwang
Why does this link to a tumblr and not direct to the NY Times?

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icecreampain
Because some blogspammer wants the hits.

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ohazi
Hmm, the one I consistently misidentify is 'interested.'

That actually might explain a lot...

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kylec
Context is everything. They're looking at me? Can't be interested, must be
something else.

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Nate75Sanders
34/36 and I was 50/50 on both of the 2 that I missed.

This is about what I expected. I'm very good at reading people in real-life
situations.

I also can informally "keep score" of what battles people have won and lost in
a team environment and very, very informally, without people realizing it,
make small deals where people win the battles they want where the other side
loses battles they don't care much about.

I don't talk about it much, but I suffered some abuse as a child and it may
have been a learned behavior from being quite in tune with what is about to
set someone off.

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hcarvalhoalves
Well, that was interesting. I learned some new words for emotions I didn't
knew about (aghast, defiant, despondent). Some of these don't even translate
to my language, I wonder how much culture affects tests like these?

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Skalman
One thing that helps me is to imitate the expression and try to feel what _I_
feel when I'm doing it. Not always right, but sometimes I go from not having a
clue to being sure.

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forgottenpaswrd
I made a bad score,22, but people tell me I am really good at reading
emotions.

I never fix myself in a static moment, but I follow the movements like
dancing. I also tend to match them while sensing their language.

Using just images is a very incomplete way of looking at this.

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tekalon
33/35\. I have social anxiety. Would not be surprised because I can read
others emotions. Sometimes knowing the emotions of those around you can be
very overwhelming.

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anmalhot
32/36 after getting my score the only question I had was: "what is the
probability that I can read people's emotion correctly ?"

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morgante
I did a lot better than I expected, given that I'm a bit of an antisocial
nerd. (27/36)

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icecreampain
31/36\. The darkest photos were the hardest to gauge. I'm a reclusive
programmer that likes to hang out with people. And I have an interest in body
language...

Regretful, doubtful, friendly, defiant, interested. That's quite the emotional
spread.

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dasil003
What does it mean to be reclusive but like to hang out with people?

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icecreampain
I enjoy being alone for most of my waking hours, although sometimes I might
feel like hanging out with people - but it must be on my terms and for no more
than a few hours. Then I need to go back to being alone.

