[nabs-l] Awkward Situations: What would you do?

[Joseph C. Lininger]

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Teal,
LOL That's funny. Honestly, I've never had much sight and never had
muscle control over my eyes. So I don't know much about looking at other
people, eye contact, that sort of thing. I have been told it's
disconcerting for a person to never make eye contact, and that it's even
more disconcerting for a person to make eye contact constantly and never
break it. I'm afraid I never learned the finer points though.

This is somewhat related, and I'd be curious to know what the
psychologists and sociologists among you think. I'll need to lay a
little ground work for the more general question, so bare with me. I've
known for some time that my emotions and moods  are communicated
visually, at least sometimes. But I had something happen that actually
got me curious about trying to find out exactly how it happens. We had a
router go down in a data center at a company I had been working for a
few months ago. I'd had a bad day the day before trying to get
everything working, and that router went down at about 4 am and took the
entire company off the Internet. Well, I came out of my hotel room and
one of the first things the guy driving me to the data center said was,
"wow Joe, you look really pissed off. Like maybe you'd like to kill
someone." I hadn't given any hint to being pissed off, though I was. I
wasn't even aware of it being communicated in my looks, I'd tried to
look pleasant and ready for another day despite the promise of yet more
problems.

After this, I became curious about exactly how expressive or not I was
with body language, facial expressions, etc. I asked people who had
known me for a while, mainly family members about it and they all said I
was in fact expressive visually, at least to a point. My sister even
provided a running commentary one day for a few minutes on what my face
was doing while conversing with people at her house. So, here's my question.

I always thought that at least to a point people learned these
expressions and that mostly by observing those around them and learning
what they meant. I knew basic stuff like a smile or frown didn't work
that way, and I could even understand certain reflexive expressions. For
example, stiffening in response to fear or anger. However, I thought the
more detailed stuff, arching eyebrows, moving of the eyes with certain
expressions, that sort of thing was learned behavior. Well, seeing in
how I can't see others doing these things and never have been able to,
how would I have possibly picked them up? Have any experiments been done
regarding such things? And more interesting... Some stuff, such as
nodding, shaking the head, or shrugging, I had to be specifically taught
those while I didn't other expressions. Does anyone have any ideas on
what governs what visual cues are natural or learned in spite of lack of
vision and which must be picked up visually?
- --
Stress (N): The condition that occurs when ones mind overrides the
body's natural desire to reach out and slap the hell out of someone
who desperately deserves it.
Joseph C. Lininger, <jbahm at pcdesk.net>

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