MindLens·Lab

Emotional Intelligence Research · Phase 1

Research for the people who struggle to read emotion in others

What we're seeing so far

Thanks to participants so far, here's what the study is beginning to show.

The emotions readers agree on… and don't

↑ Most agreed

Happy / amused
73%
Sad / sorry
70%
Moved / touched
70%
Angry / frustrated
64%
Embarrassed / awkward
61%
Anxious / nervous
53%
Disappointed
48%
Proud
42%

↓ Most divergent

Bar length = modal share, the % of readers who chose the top emotion on the clips where that emotion led. High = readers converged; low = readers split. Only emotions with enough clip appearances are shown.

Which signals did readers rely on?

Facial expression
69%
The situation
52%
Tone of voice
51%
Body language / posture
51%
What they said
44%
How others reacted
13%
Timing / pauses
8%
Something else
1%

Multiple signals allowed per reading, so shares exceed 100% in aggregate.

Featured pre-registered claim

H1

Plurality is the norm, not the exception.

We predict median modal share under 70%, and fewer than 20% of qualifying clips showing high consensus.

Median modal share (H1 predicts <70%)

64% under threshold ✓

High-consensus clips (H1 predicts <20%)

15% under threshold ✓

Soft support. Full test at N ≥ 5 readers per clip. Analysis plan pre-registered before data collection began.

H1 is one of 8 pre-registered hypotheses — the foundational one. The others need more data or are more technical; see them all at /research/hypotheses.

No scoring, no leaderboard. Your reading joins a research dataset — that's it.

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Where to learn more

The depth lives on the other pages.