Utilising motion capture technology to identify trusted testimony in military encounters

Objectives:We use motion capture technology to examine whether or not soldiers unconsciously act differently toward untrustworthy interlocutors.Design:Participants interviewed six ‘citizens’ (confederates) about an illegal activity on a military base. We varied citizen trustworthiness by cooperativeness (either cooperative or non-cooperative) and knowledge (either genuine, absent, or false). Methods:Forty University students wore an Xsens motion capture suit while interviewing the citizens, after which they made explicit trust judgments. Movement data were submitted to a linear mixed effects model with cooperation and knowledge as repeated measures, and interview order as a random effect. Results:Greater overall body movement differentiated non-cooperative citizens from their counterparts, F(1, 1363.5) = 33.86, p < .001, and citizens with no knowledge from those with knowledge, F(1, 1363.1) = 3.01, p < .05. Participants’ explicit judgements only identified those who were uncooperative. Conclusions:Interviewers could not judge whether an uncooperative citizen had valuable information, yet they reacted differently to those with valuable knowledge. Thus, using small-scale motion tracking sensors enables interviewers to identify uncooperative citizens concealing valuable information from other innocent, though not necessarily cooperative, citizens. Furthermore, monitoring nonverbal behaviour may be more effective at identifying threat than explicit judgments that rely on conscious awareness

Immersive simulations with extreme teams

Extreme teams (ETs) work in challenging, high pressured contexts, where poor performance can have severe consequences. These teams must coordinate their skill sets, align their goals, and develop shared awareness, all under stressful conditions. How best to research these teams poses unique challenges as researchers seek to provide applied recommendations while conducting rigorous research to test how teamwork models work in practice. In this article, we identify immersive simulations as one solution to this, outlining their advantages over existing methodologies and suggesting how researchers can best make use of recent advances in technology and analytical techniques when designing simulation studies. We conclude that immersive simulations are key to ensuring ecological validity and empirically reliable research with ETs

Building an International Network: International Academic Partnerships for Science and Security

Slides for the presentation presented at the ENVISION24 Conference Session 8: Lighting Talks: Transformative Workforce Developmen

A proposal for improving safety in construction projects by strengthening coordinators’ competencies in health and safety issues

The figure of the coordinator in health and safety issues in the construction sector first appeared in our legislation through the incorporation of the European Directives (in our case Royal Decree 1627/97 on the minimum health and safety regulations in construction works), and is viewed differently in different countries of the European Union regarding the way they are hired and their role in the construction industry. Coordinating health and safety issues is also a management process that requires certain competencies that are not only based on technical or professional training, but which, taking account of the work environment, require the use of strategies and tools that are related to experience and personal skills. Through a piece of research that took account of expert opinions in the matter, we have found which competencies need to be possessed by the health and safety coordinator in order to improve the safety in the works they are coordinating. The conclusions of the analyses performed using the appropriate statistical methods (comparing means and multivariate analysis techniques), will enable training programmes to be designed and ensure that the health and safety coordinators selected have the competencies required to carry out their duties

Fast-tracking Trust: Exploring the Relative Importance of Competence, Integrity, and Benevolence in Informant-Handler Interactions

Introduction: Demonstrating trustworthiness has been shown to increase trust and, in turn, information sharing in investigative interviews. However, the most effective ways to build trust in security contexts and the role of trust demonstrations in informant-handler relationships remain underexplored. This study tests the relative importance of competence, integrity, and benevolence demonstrations on initial trust development and willingness to cooperate in remote informant-handler encounters.Methods: Using a within-subject design, participants received background information on an organised crime scenario and listened to three simulated phone call recordings, where handlers demonstrated each of the three factors of trustworthiness during attempts to recruit an informant. After each recording, participants rated the handler’s trustworthiness and their own willingness to trust and cooperate and provided written feedback on each call. Participants also expressed their preferred trust-building strategy used by handlers and rated their trust propensity.Results: A repeated measures ANCOVA revealed no significant differences in willingness to trust based on the type of trustworthiness demonstration. However, trust propensity significantly impacted trust levels, so that more trusting individuals were more likely to trust the handler. Thematic analyses highlighted substantial individual differences in what participants liked and disliked about each approach.Conclusions: Findings suggest that no specific demonstration of trustworthiness is more effective in fostering initial trust, indicating that handlers should tailor trust-building strategies to individuals instead of adhering to general guidelines. Future research should employ idiographic approaches to further understand how individuals perceive and react to trust-building strategies

EXPRESS: Interpersonal sensemaking and cooperation in investigative interviews : The role of matching

The cylinder model of interpersonal sensemaking predict that cooperation emerges in interactions where speakers are matched on motivational frames and cooperative rather than competitive in orientation (Taylor, 2002). The purpose of the current study was to provide the first evidence of a causal link between motivational frame matching and cooperation and trust in an investigative interviewing context. Over two pre-registered experiments (N = 776), participants took the role of a suspect during an interaction with an interviewer. During the interaction, the interviewer and suspect either matched motivational frames (in an instrumental, relational, or identity motivational frame) or not, in either a cooperative or competitive way. It was found that within a cooperative orientation interaction, motivational frame matching led to significantly higher willingness to cooperate and greater feelings of being understood among the participants. In contrast, within a competitive orientation interaction, motivational frame matching led to significantly less willingness to cooperate and identify with the interviewer