How accurately can we guess another person’s emotional state from just looking at their eyes? Without looking at the rest of their face, or other parts of their body, can we correctly determine a person’s inner state, desires or intentions?

Why not test yourself online with this test developed by Dr. Simon Cohen-Baron (Ali G/Borat’s real life cousin– I kid you not!).

I found this challenge extremely interesting, and although I struggled on a few of the faces, I did better than expected. See if you can beat my score of 31! In the results section, it’s pretty clear that females score higher than men, especially in the upper range. Maybe I have a less masculine brain? I’d never admit that…

Unfortunately, in the age of text-based communication, these innate and fine tuned skills have become somewhat debased; yet, the popular use of smiley’s and emoticons reveals that we’re still reliant on these signals to correctly decode the intent of others.

Do you ever find that your text-based messages are wrongly interpreted by the other end? Do you often hesitate to use satire or sarcasm online because it might be taken seriously?