Originally Posted by
gingersnaps
Wouldn't TSA response be "Well there is a sign when you enter the queue that informs you of screening will take place." I know that has been a legal standard for many years when reviewing airport screening, consent, and the 4th Amendment - that standard being was the individual on notice that screening was occurring. So I would agree that BDO questions is a form of screening.
Paul Eckman wrote something recently that "mock" situations do not provide an accurate view of things.
My research and the research of many other scientists found that when there’s a lot to lose (death or imprisonment) emotions are generated which are very hard to conceal and often leak out in what I call micro-expressions. The SPOT personnel are trained to identify these and many other signs of emotional overload. When there is not only the threat of dire punishment for failure but great reward promised for success whether it be money or 72 virgins it puts a lot of pressure on people's ability to think, producing cognitive overload, and subtle changes in speech. The SPOT people are trained to detect the subtle signs of emotional and cognitive overload. Of course they didn’t catch the play-actors. They had nothing to lose and nothing to gain if their “bombs” were detected. There was no cognitive or emotional overload. I am all for testing it, but lets not do it in such a shoddy, half-baked, invalid fashion.
Ekman is correct in many of his statements. Mock situations are completely different than real situations. The stress load generated is completely different, and there is no serious worry about the end game. I wish I c0uold find it, but there were studies being done with folks having similar behavioral training (to TSA BDOs), and observing videos of folks in interviews, videos of interviews as well as discreet surveillance videos, and the results were surprisingly positive. One ran along the lines of 80% identified the individual that was lying, or being misleading. If I find the link I will include it later. It is not a "smoking gun" that many here are wanting, but it did show promise in being able to use scientific methodology to gain a better understanding of how the behavioral observation systems work and can be improved on - or inevitably scrapped as non-viable.