Hostile intent in public crowded spaces: a field study

An Overview of Advancements in Lie Detection Technology in Speech

Lie detection technology in speech is a process of lying psychological state recognition according speech signal analysis. Normally, the emotion of tension if felt when people lie. As a result, this tension leads to some subtle changes of the sound channel structure; for example, the semantic characteristics, prosodic characteristics, resonance peak, and the psychoacoustics parameters all can be different from before. In this paper, the development situation of current lie detection technology is presented. Several public speech databases for lie detection are also introduced. Then, the research situation of feature expression, selection, and extraction for lie detection is described. In addition, the research progress of lie detection algorithm is highlighted. Finally, the future direction and the existing problems of lie detection technology in speech are summarized.

Does hostile intent cause physiological changes? An airport security check simulation experiment

The present research was aimed at investigating in a simulation experiment whether the initiation of a hostile project in an environment akin to airport security checkpoints would translate in variation of cardiac activity. Twenty-three participants (eight women) enrolled as mock passengers had to make several traverses of a security checkpoint while carrying luggage containing either a neutral or a falsely dangerous item. The traverses with the falsely dangerous item were associated with an elevation of heart rate and higher drops of heart rate variability than the traverses with the neutral item. These effects were more salient for the first traverses. Implication of results for security management and the role of arousal and mental workload in threat detection are discussed.

What Is Suspicious When Trying to be Inconspicuous? Criminal Intentions Inferred From Nonverbal Behavioral Cues

The present study investigates whether nonverbal behavioral cues to hidden criminal intentions during the build-up phase of a criminal act can be measured. To this end, we created recordings of actors once in a search situation and once committing a mock crime (theft or bomb placing) in a public crowded area. For ecological validation, we used authentic CCTV footage of real crimes in Experiment I. In this experiment, the two behavioral clusters pattern of movement in space and nonverbal communication behavior were analyzed. The results showed a deviance in pattern of movement in space for offenders' compared with the nonoffenders' condition as well as a bystanders' baseline. There was no significant difference between nonverbal communication behavior in the offenders' and nonoffenders' conditions. Experiment 2 was conducted to examine the two behavior clusters use of object- and self-adaptors while controlling for interpersonal differences. The results showed an increased use of object- and decreased use of self-adaptors during the build-up phase of a mock crime compared with a control condition (search). Thus, nonverbal behavior of offenders seems to differ from nonverbal behavior of nonoffenders. However, this holds only under the conditions of a valid baseline and of judging not only a single, typical behavioral cue but a whole cluster of nonverbal behaviors, such as pattern of movement in space or use of object-adaptors in general.

Scalable interrogation: Eliciting human pheromone responses to deception in a security interview setting

Individuals trying to conceal knowledge from interrogators are likely to experience raised levels of stress that can manifest itself across biological, physiological, psychological and behavioural factors, providing an opportunity for detection. Using established research paradigms an innovative scalable interrogation was designed in which participants were given a 'token' that represented information they had to conceal from interviewers. A control group did not receive a token and therefore did not have to deceive the investigators. The aim of this investigation was to examine differences between deceivers and truth-tellers across the four factors by collecting data for cortisol levels, sweat samples, heart-rate, respiration, skin temperature, subjective stress ratings and video and audio recordings. The results provided an integrated understanding of responses to interrogation by those actively concealing information and those acting innocently. Of particular importance, the results also suggest, for the first time in an interrogation setting, that stressed individuals may secrete a volatile steroid based marker that could be used for stand-off detection. The findings are discussed in relation to developing a scalable interrogation protocol for future research in this area.