
Why people have trouble reading neutral faces - dnetesn
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/science/reading-neutral-faces.html
======
empath75
As someone with parents who fought constantly and particularly an abusive
mother, I can confirm this is true.

I have always been introverted and averse to talking to new people. I’ve been
told I’m stand offish or that people think I don’t like them all the time and
really I just have a hard time reading faces and assume everyone doesn’t want
to talk to me.

It’s something I actively have to fight against and it’s had a negative impact
on me my whole life.

If you’re a parent, please please consider what you are doing to your children
when you fight around them.

------
daenz
I've thought about getting plastic surgery to change the way my eyebrows sit
on my face. They naturally angle downwards and always look like I'm angry,
when my face is completely resting. When I'm interacting with new people, I
have to consciously keep my eyebrows raised as I'm smiling to look more
pleasant. I really do think it is a hidden handicap though, and one that
affects literally every interaction I have with people.

~~~
Clubber
I'm similar. I have bitchy resting face. I used to do that (raise eyebrows,
etc) when I was younger. The wonderful thing about aging, is you don't really
care what other people think anymore; at least not as much as you used to.

~~~
dvtv75
I remember the first time someone verbalized about my completely relaxed face.
I was miles away, daydreaming, and one of my friends touched my shoulder and
asked if I was alright. I told her yes, and asked why. She said I just looked
really sad.

So apparently I have resting sad face.

~~~
lawlessone
Seem to have similar, consistently asked by friends if i'm not ok or upset
when i feel fine.

------
interfixus
> _A study published in March in the Journal of Social and Personal
> Relationships suggests that some people who grew up with parents who fought
> a lot never learned to properly read those in-between faces, perhaps because
> they spent so much time watching out for signs of conflict_

Why is this kind of reasoning so often applied in such cases? Could just as
well be that your parents fought a lot because they were hopeless at reading
each other. A shortcoming which you then went and inherited.

~~~
amp108
While it is possible that this is the case, I doubt that it is equally likely.
Parents who fight for that long would have to be bad at reading faces, and
abnormally bad at speaking, to accidentally misread each other through an
entire argument.

------
dhekir
Moving to a country with a different culture and language may help overcome
the symptoms. If parents fight using a specific language, aggressive tones and
swear words are more easily associated to that language. "Resetting" to a
neutral state in a different language can help dissociating everyday words
from the negative memories.

Also, in different cultures people's faces and expressions may be markedly
different, forcing the person to have to re-learn to interpret them. Again,
supposing that on average exposure to people will be more neutral that in a
home of disputing parents, the relearning process should tend to have a
positive effect.

This is likely to be stronger the more "alien" the new culture/language is,
because a more radical relearning will be necessary.

~~~
egonschiele
Are you speaking from experience? I never had this issue before, but I moved
to a different culture and now I do feel like everyone is angry all the time.

> forcing the person to have to re-learn to interpret them

I've been in said new culture for almost 20 years and haven't done this re-
learning, so I don't have high hopes

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
I kind of get the opposite. I'm Greek but have been living in the UK for 12
years. It's really remarkable how much more people smile at you here in
situations where you wouldn't expect anyone to smile, back home.

For instance, anyone who is offering a service or selling something is
smiling, here. Back home, I find that people tend to smile when they meet
friends or acquaintances, but not when they service total strangers. In fact,
a merchant that always smiles would probably come across as dishonest. People
tend to consider social smiles to be fake smiles and I think they try to avoid
them so as to not look distrustful.

The effect this had on me is that when I go back home, or when I'm serviced by
non-British staff who may not have been long enougn in the UK to pick up the
habit, I sometimes find myself wondering why they are being so brusque. Which
is not at all the case. People aren't impolite when they don't go out of their
way to put a smile on everything. They're just acting neutrally.

Edit: Oh and I've been on the other end of this myself- when colleagues
complained that I was treating them with disrespect when I was just ...not
smiling :)

~~~
egonschiele
I guess that explains it ... I'm from India (lots of smiles) moved to the US
(fewer smiles).

------
perl4ever
My problem is not that; it's that every headline/blurb seems like it's begging
the question.

------
yupitstrueagain
I can confirm this is true in my case. My folks fought at least 3 times a day
when i was growing up till they divorced. A few years ago i realized that i
was perceiving anger when none was present. This is why i favor divorce since
you don't want to put your kids through this shit. :)

~~~
empath75
Unfortunately if my parents had divorced, I’d have been left with the angrier
one most likely. I’m glad my dad hung around even though he was as much a
victim of the abuse as I was.

~~~
vorhuts
It's impossible for men to be victims of abuse in our patriarchal system.
Check your privilege.

~~~
dang
You've posted a bunch of flamebait to HN already. Could you please not do
that? It isn't what this site is for, and we eventually ban accounts that do
it.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
vorhuts
I have posted two questionable comments as satire but I'll stop. Thank you for
the courtesy.

------
comex
Anyone else think that in the “neutral” photo, the actors look like they’re
about to kiss?

No, really. I blame an overexposure to pop culture. That particular framing,
with the characters staring into each other’s eyes, combined with the sense of
stillness implied by a photo, to me feels reminiscent of a certain overused
stock scene in film…

And there’s reason I thought of film. In a real-life photo, people are usually
either looking at the camera (if they’re aware of the photo) or farther away
(if they’re not). You wouldn’t usually see that kind of perfectly framed side
shot.

So I’m not sure all the children were really “misreading” the emotion in the
neutral photo. (Unless, of course, it’s just me who’s misreading…)

~~~
watwut
They do look like people about to kiss. If would look less that way if they
would be further from each other. Their shoulders are almost touching. Also,
people rarely silently stare at each other at non-kissing occasions.

------
ddggdd
Just remembered the 'how emotions are made' book I read last year, and
screaming 'no universal emotion expression' inside.

------
known
Wondering how ML/AI can read neutral faces?

------
hateful
Finally, some science behind Resting Bitch Face.

~~~
amelius
How is it different from the INTJ death glare?

[http://intj-explained.tumblr.com/post/10233359295/the-death-...](http://intj-
explained.tumblr.com/post/10233359295/the-death-glare)

~~~
LeoPanthera
I think it's important to remind yourself that the Myers-Briggs test is not
valid psychology.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator#Cr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator#Criticism)

~~~
AstralStorm
It is sound but not reliable or entirely valid. (Soundness pertains to logic
behind the test. Validity to accuracy and predictive power and reliability to
test/retest reproducibility.)

What is invalid is using this test to anything more than pain typology. It is
not meant to be a hiring guide, a mental issue test nor intelligence test, nor
social group fit test.

Big Five makes it a bit more explicit though still does nor fully decorrelate
the factors. It also has a bit of a reliability problem. NEO P-I is even
better. IPIP, further still.

There are more advanced psychological inventories too and ones more
specialised for given tasks. I'm pretty sure soneone will come up with a way
to integrate emotion and body language reading into an inventory one day.

------
soperj
The comments on this article seem profoundly American. I could never imagine
anyone I've known to care this much.

~~~
sctb
We've already asked you to stop with the off-topic national swipes. Please?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
soperj
It wasn't intended as a swipe.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I don't see any way to read your comment that isn't condescending.

~~~
soperj
Funny how well this goes with the topic. It's only condescending if you take
it to be a bad thing. I'm making no judgement, just pointing out the
substantial difference in attitudes.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
If you didn't intend to make a judgment, then you're communicating poorly,
since a lot of people clearly read it as judgmental.

