Reading Emotions: An Online Quiz to Approach With Curiosity

Are you able to accurately read other people's emotions?

Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Reading Emotions?

Ten questions about facial expressions, feelings and how we understand each other. Remember that in real life, asking is often the best way to know how someone feels.

Psychologist Paul Ekman proposed a set of six basic emotions. Which of these was NOT on his original list?
Ekman's six were happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust; jealousy was not among them.
What is a 'Duchenne smile'?
Named after the French neurologist Guillaume Duchenne, it involves the muscles around the eyes as well as the mouth and is often linked with genuine enjoyment.
Raised eyebrows, wide-open eyes and a dropped jaw are the classic expression of which emotion?
This combination is the textbook picture of surprise, though context always matters in real faces.
A wrinkled nose and a raised upper lip are most associated with which emotion?
These features form the typical expression of disgust, as if pulling away from a bad smell.
Very brief facial expressions that flash across the face in a fraction of a second are called…
Microexpressions are fleeting expressions lasting only a fraction of a second; spotting one still does not tell you why someone feels that way.
Which small brain structure is strongly linked with processing fear?
The amygdala, a pair of almond-shaped structures deep in the brain, plays a key role in detecting and responding to threat.
What is the term for difficulty identifying and describing one's own emotions?
Alexithymia means difficulty recognising and putting words to your own feelings; aphasia is a language disorder and amnesia is memory loss.
Which German word describes pleasure at someone else's misfortune?
Schadenfreude combines 'Schaden' (harm) and 'Freude' (joy).
Understanding that other people have their own beliefs, wishes and knowledge, different from yours, is called…
Theory of mind is the ability to understand that others have minds of their own, and it develops through early childhood.
You are not sure whether a friend is upset or just tired. What is the most reliable way to find out?
A face shows only part of the story; a gentle question lets the person tell you what is really going on.

Curious beginner

Emotions are tricky, and you have just started exploring how we read them. The explanations above are a good place to pick up a few new ideas.

Good observer

You know quite a lot about how feelings show up in faces and words. A few more facts and you will be explaining them to your friends.

Emotion expert

Impressive: you know your Duchenne smiles from your microexpressions. Pair that knowledge with good questions and you will understand people even better.

Perfect score

Ten out of ten. You clearly know the science of emotions well, and hopefully you also know that the best insight comes from simply asking.

Related:

A face is only one part of a conversation

A quiz may ask you to choose an emotion from an expression while withholding voice, situation and the person's own explanation. That makes it a limited exercise. Compare why you selected an answer rather than treating the score as a complete measure of how well you understand people. In real interactions, asking can resolve uncertainty that a still image cannot.

Explore the related article: Empathy: Five Ideas to Reconsider Without Mind-Reading Claims.