How good are you at reading people?

[Gentleman Johnny]

I saw this on a friend's Facebook and thought it might be useful/fun for people. Its in the standard format of those silly quizzes but this one is actually a useful test of how well you can read fairly standard facial expressions.
http://www.playbuzz.com/margottouitou10/how-observant-are-you-really

[Enail]

I got 'incredibly observant.' ...I think this test might be way too easy.

[eselle28]

I am apparently incredibly observant (note: I am not really, like kind of not at all).

[nearly_takuan]

Is there more than one possible result for this "quiz"?

[Gentleman Johnny]

Found a couple more:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/well-quiz-the-mind-behind-the-eyes/?_r=0
http://socialintelligence.labinthewild.org/mite/

Edit: Pretty sure these are the same test. The latter gives you specific feedback on which ones you got wrong.

Edit Edit: However the second one has a nice bell curve chart of how well everyone else did.

[eselle28]

This time I got a 29, which is in the normal zone. This bit wasn't scored, but I noticed most of my wrong guesses were younger-looking male faces, which is kind of an interesting trend.

[Enail]

I got 33/36 on that last one, which seems a fair ways above average. I'm skeptical, especially given how many of the expressions I thought weren't well-described by any of the options.

[Gentleman Johnny]

Enail, I had that problem, too. Its a lot easier to read someone when you only have four choices.

[BasedBuzzed]

32/36, but some expressions where repeated with different phrases around it, right?

Still, this is pretty heartening.

[Gentleman Johnny]

26 is the average but I shouldn't be surprised that people who spend significant portions of their spare time discussing social calibration do better than average. I'd be curious to see how some of our more. . .special. . .commenters on DNL Prime do.

[nearly_takuan]

Got 29 this time, which is better than the median but apparently equal to the mode. Then I took the NYT version to see which ones I was getting wrong and... there isn't much of a pattern there, that I can see.

I wonder how the (general, statistical) results would shift if there were any men making "flirtatious" or "interested" or "confident" expressions, or if that was even a possible choice on some of these. Same for female eyes being "thoughtful" or "friendly" or "hostile", or young eyes being "pensive".

[Enail]

Yeah, I found that the expressions were rather gendered, and the women in particular were not terribly expressive.

[eselle28]

I noticed there seemed to be a lot of women making flirting or fantasizing faces. I wasn't sure if that was because the choices had stereotypes underlying them or because that's an expression that people are more prone to misreading and was meant to sort out the pretty good at reading people folks from the really good ones.

[Gentleman Johnny]

Although the women did tend to have gendered options, I also found in the NYT version that about 50% of the time, the flirty/romantic one was a possible answer but the wrong one. Those are the ones I'm curious to see how guys did, if there's any correlation between over/under reading romantic intent and various Nice Guy or douchebag attitudes.

[readertorider]

I got a 29--wish I knew though if they were giving the person facing them that expression or if they felt that way towards the person they were glancing at. Also wanted more choices for the descriptions.

Tried doing it again mimicking the expressions myself and picking what I felt while making the expressions and got a 22--I may be a little weirdly calibrated

Did notice that "flirting"/"fantasizing" appeared a lot more often for women as an option. I kinda liked the idea that the researchers were party interested in whether certain people had a hard time reading women's signals

[UristMcBunny]

I got 30... I swear quite a few of those pictures were repeated.

[Werel]

Huh, 30/36. I'm with you, Enail-- in a lot of cases, none of the options felt quite right. Weirdly, I found the women's eyes with heavy makeup (especially pencilled eyebrows) harder to read, like the cosmetics were overriding some of the micro-data you might otherwise get from eyes. Difficulty was also compounded the urge to hypercorrect for society and never select "flirtatious" or "fantasizing."

[Guest]

I'd be curious to see how some of our more. . .special. . .commenters on DNL Prime do.

Heh. I got 32/36, which makes me happy and relieved, but only tentatively because I'm sure this doesn't translate well to real-life. (The irony that I've got similar scores to those of you with social lives is sweet )

Oh, I got "incredibly observant" too. Why yes, I would like to be a detective someday

[reboot]

Incredibly observant and 33/36

Did anyone else find it weird that in the NYT quiz all the older eyes belonged to men?

[Lemminkainen]

26 is the average  but I shouldn't be surprised that people who spend significant portions of their spare time discussing social calibration do better than average. I'd be curious to see how some of our more. . .special. . .commenters on DNL Prime do.

Hey, we shouldn't equate being an asshole with having more difficulty reading people's facial expressions-- particularly since, as a lot of people have pointed out, most street harassers and similar types do what they do because they're bullies know exactly how it makes people feel, and want to hurt them. The people who have the hardest time reading the emotions of others aren't neurotypical, and they (we? but I scored a 29 on this and seem to have gotten better at this range of tasks over the past few years...) have enough shit to deal with without people stereotyping them as misogynists or sociopaths.

[waxingjaney]

19 of 36.

[Gentleman Johnny]

I found that the way I got the best results was to picture the expression of each choice independent of the photo and see which matched. I am curious if men on average read more flirty and guys who are afraid to approach read less flirty than is actually there.

[Nerdator]

Got 21 right. While the test is obviously a textbook case of raging bollocks – I mean, on the individual level and in uncontrolled conditions, some of the pictures were really blank and inexpressive, especially old people and women.

[reboot]

Got 21 right. While the test is obviously a textbook case of raging bollocks – I mean, on the individual level and in uncontrolled conditions, some of the pictures were really blank and inexpressive, especially old people and women.

Really? I found the old people the easiest to read.

[Nerdator]

Got 21 right. While the test is obviously a textbook case of raging bollocks – I mean, on the individual level and in uncontrolled conditions, some of the pictures were really blank and inexpressive, especially old people and women.

Really? I found the old people the easiest to read.

Yep, I answered randomly to a couple of them – they're just staring at you from the picture: I've seen cats more expressive than that.

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