When you (yes, you specifically, whoever you are) say in a post "you VI like..." or "s/he VIs like..." what is it that you mean precisely?
I have done no research whatsoever on this, but I suspect that there are different "schools" regarding VI within Socionics. This is partly irrelevant to my question though, because I get the impression that for a lot of people posting here, they're VI-ing based on their own personalized ideas of visual commonalities between types. I am wondering what *your* personalized ideas are - what are you personally going off of to recognize certain types or IM elements within images or videos?
I have posted in threads where VI is asked for. I do not know what I'm talking about when I do this for the most part. It is based on some loose (still forming) associations (mainly looking for hints of IM elements in a photo or video). It is largely inaccurate (when I do it). Not to mention, there is the question of whether there is all that much to VI anyway. (Do you think there's anything substantial to VI? What is your opinon/view?)
That said, some things do sometimes seem apparent. Ni can have a rather interesting look in the eyes it seems. This has nothing to do with people's physical characteristics (from my perspective) but more to do with external hints as to internal processes. N in general seems to appear as a sort of zero or inverse charisma in people sometimes... the person doesn't show much of a physical presence. They don't "pop out" at you... they don't draw your attention so easily... there's something in their eyes that is projecting inward and not outward. I don't know how to explain it and can't pin it down. But it seems to look somewhat different for Ni and Ne. [EDIT: By the way, the first vid posted in this thread by Hkkmr sort of shows what I mean by "inverse charisma." The IEI-looking guy in the video has like a negative physical presence.]
Just as a couple examples...
- When Scarlet posted her video where she showed what Ni, Fe, Se, and Ti "look like," when she did the "Ni" part... that was exactly it: the Ni look. That's what I'm talking about.
- The Ne look comes to mind in a picture Minde posted of when she was a child (go here - it seems most evident in her eyes in the last picture of when she was 6/7).
- The other IM element that seems to be rather apparent to me (sometimes) in images of others (perhaps more so than Ni or Ne) is Se, especially in SLEs.
- Another thing I noticed was Si-PoLR or Si-role fct. It was these images (originally posted by XoX I think) where it came to mind (particularly the first two):
What I noticed here is that she seems to experience leaving the water as a sort of "toil." It reminds me of how I feel sometimes. It's sort of like your mind is on the path of what will happen next, running through thoughts, looking ahead... but in the meantime you have to "get through" whatever physical thing you're doing (like leaving the water, or even being in the water). The experience of "toil" is not created by your physical experience... but by your natural focus *away from* your physical experience, as well as away from enjoying the moment. Again, I'm having a hard time trying to explain what I mean. (I rather wish the third picture weren't there. )
I especially love the second picture where she's tripping through the water... it's somewhat different from how I feel in that I think her Te might be affecting how she looks... in the first picture it's like she's ready to "take this task on" and be a trooper about getting through it (as though it's an exercise in efficiency). In the second picture it appears that it didn't quite work out for her, lol. Anyway, subtract that Te-ish EJ-ish look and it reminds me of how I feel at times. Hopefully I'm not off my rocker about this.
EDIT: Also that sort of thing seems to happen maybe a lot more frequently with intuition... your mind is elsewhere... not really paying attention to what you are physically doing... so then you get ahead of yourself and trip on something... that's when the external world calls you back and demands your attention/participation in it.
As another thought, I noticed that at this link you can "test your VI skills." I failed miserably at this. But I got the impression that it was going off of actual physical characteristics, like bone structure, or eye shape, etc. I don't *know* this for sure, but I highly suspect it. This is different of course than the method I was trying to employ, and I'm very hesitant to believe that superficial physical characteristics are type related. As an aside, I also noticed that socioniko.net seems to be "anti-VI."
So, anyway, those are quite a few of my thoughts on this. I wanted to know what VI is to you, and again, how you are going about it. Hope that made sense.