I should preface this by mentioning that I suffer from a disorder known as "Asperger Syndrome" which basically means I have a low emotional range, and I can't read facial expressions at all.

Whilst reading a lot of Harry Potter fanfiction, I notice that the authors always describe how a character makes a facial expression that has a certain meaning.
I.E. "Fleur looks at harry in a way that makes it clear she doesn't expect an answer to her question"
This is a very simple example(simple in the message portrayed) but it will suit the purposes.

Does this actually happen in real life? Are most people able to understand someone's mood based off their facial expressions? Or is it just liberal use of creative license?

 

Meh I can sometimes read people by their face so it does have some basis in real life.

Like all things some are better at reading people than others and some people are better at masking their emotions than others. So it varies.

 

Rofl, don't ask an internet forum about reading facial expressions, everyone here is too asocial.

Anyways, yes, the general population can read emotions on others' faces by the way the mouth is postured, and people hold their eyes differently when they are feeling different emotions. It's like context close during your verbal conversation that allow you to know what someone's thinking, or what direction their thoughts are going in. Someone may be saying one thing but their face says something completely different.

 

Poker is the most obvious example that emotions and the likes can be 'read' on a person's face. So yeah, you can convey expression that way, just look at when someone has been surprised, there is a distinctive expression that everybody seems to share when it happens.

 

It's funny that you should mention that. At the present time, I play poker for a living, however the bulk of my income comes from online poker. I notice that I am no where near as good(good enough to beat most players, but not as comfortably as I would like) at live poker as opposed to online poker.

That could be due to impatience rather than reads though. When playing online poker i can usually clear 700-800 hands per hour, live poker is closer to 20-30.

 

In most cases, people aren't as observant IRL as they are in fiction. So while an author may describe a particular expression (say your Fleur example) realistically, the use of artisitic license starts to become liberal when everyone can decipher everyone's expression, ie if characters start to read each other's thoughts based on facial expression.

As said above, some people are good at reading others, some people aren't. Same goes for hiding your emotion. When you can do both, you win a fuckload of poker money.

 

Facial expressions and body posture can tell you a lot about what's going on in a person's mind. Ask any police interrigator or yeah, any real life gambling addict.

I can't play real life poker for shit, because I wind up giving away whether I got a good hand or not pretty quickly if you know me. My eyes glaze a bit, I get flushed some in the face because I get happy, etc.

So yeah, it's pretty common, but authors do overuse facial expressions in fiction.

 

Aye, and it's very tough not being able to read those non-verbal cues because as any parent will tell you "I said such and such, but I meant such and such", and you've got no way of telling it.

Even with Aspergers, you can learn some of the general cues for this sort of thing, but it does take a lot of practice to pick up, and even then it's not entirely accurate, especially when you're comparing your list of how things work vs someone who you're not familiar with.

I do speak from personal experience, having suffered the same problem myself throughout much of my younger years. It's less of an issue now, but every now and then I get caught up because I just can't read what someone is feeling or thinking, and their words tell me nothing at all.

 

This, basically. Writing is simply a way of drawing out actions that happen in an instant irl, which is probably why it seems too exaggerated at times. Interacting with people in general, and certain jobs/activities in particular, rely heavily on understanding visual cues and body language.

 

I know the feeling. I suck at reading body language, so I tried to learn to do it intellectually. This doesn't really work too well; I cannot simultaneously interpret what the other person said, interpret nonverbal cues, and compose my next sentence. I have, however, developed a tendency to create elaborate psychological profiles and histories for people if I can passively observe them for a few minutes. These are probably grossly inaccurate.

 

One individuals observations of another's 'tendencies' often are grossly inaccurate, but it is something we all do around others because we're human and like to think we are all the same.

Really, the only person you can be sure of is yourself.

 

On an interesting note, while I have severe troubles reading body language and nonverbal cues, I'm pretty damn good at reading textual cues from a body of text.

People who lack that sort of functionality have what I've often called 'internet aspergers' (aka troll disease), in that they can't pick up on textual cues that don't outright state something.

Which is interesting to see in action, because it really does mirror how I go about things IRL.

 

I was going to say something along the lines of "ahh, someone who can empathise with my situation" but then I realized just how stupid that line of thought was considering the disorder we are discussing :awesome

I had the most trouble with my Aspergers when I was undiagnosed(up until I turned 15) because I had no idea why I was having so much trouble fitting in with the other kids my age. After being diagnosed I did a fair bit of research and found out exactly what I was missing. I usually do something similar to the psychological profiling in order to not make myself sound like an arrogant ass or an idiot.

 

Actually if you put enough effort into studying other people, you can build pretty accurate profiles. This comes from experience since my favorite hobby is manipulating fellow classmates. You can actually learn someone well enough that you can control their emotions.

 

I think that just comes naturally to you.

 

Sexist statement alert!

And now back the regularly scheduled reply.

My brother has Asperger's Syndrome, and he can't even tell the difference in people's faces (that he doesn't know) much less being able to read emotions or situational ques off of them. While I will readily admit to being socially isolated I can still read some things on faces.

However, never to the degree that some authors take it. It's like the characters are suddenly psychic.

 

Yeah, in writing, the hyper-sensitivity characters have toward each other's expressions is just another way to keep the drama and the pace rolling. If you think about it in real life, lots of situations are smoothed over or just never realized because people either can't read each other or they don't care to look too much into it.

But for the sake of plot, we have to deal with a bunch of empaths (or legilimens ).

I can usually tell when someone means something other than what they say, but I really dislike stirring up drama (or having other people pry at me) so I just pretend I don't notice until they want to come to me. That may make me something of a social coward, but I like to think I'm just considerate, haha. I can't imagine manipulating people for fun, but I guess it does have a certain machiavellian appeal.

 

That it does. I now have my brother, my best friend and a couple of other mates down to pat when reading facial expressions. It's quite fun being able to make them go get me pepsi without them actually realising I've told them to .