Behavioural Analysis Conference 2023 / Day 2

Continuing with my summary for those who couldn’t attend this year’s conference at Prague Airport, here are some of my favourites for the second day. There were many more interesting talks and discussions. A list of all the lectures you can still find on www.behaviouralanalysis.com

Barbora Vegrichtová ?showed us that non-verbal communication is much more than body posture, eye movement or nose touching. What about hand signals, hairstyle, clothing and alphanumeric codes?

She collected samples of criminal and extremist tattoos and symbols from 15 correctional facilities in the Czech Republic and showed examples of many different categories of tattoos, ranging from neo-nazism, drug paraphernalia, gang identifiers and ACAB-tattoos (read: “All Cops Are Pigs”, but often referring to all authorities, including, e.g., teachers and airport security staff). In short, she argued that tattoos could sometimes tell a very detailed story, quoting an inmate, “My tattoos are more important than my ID or passport”.

Continuing this practical theme,?Itzik Ashkenazi talked about his experiences running the security side of many international events (e.g. Eurovision Song Contest, Miss Universe and Maccabiah Games), focussing not only on the terrorist threat but also on the prevention of disruption. The security team needs different instructions and briefing for the latter, supplementing the usual terror-oriented training.

He showed us how to differentiate events, each needing its bespoke approach. As a start, the team should establish beforehand parameters like, e.g. age of attendants, dress code, community, groups within groups or single people, alcohol usage, and possible opposing parties. Secondly, look at locations at the event where opponents may be organising themselves, like car parks, restrooms, or built-up areas.?

Sandra Adiarte SAS, CMA, PhD Candidate ?added Laban Movement Analysis to our repertoire of ‘tools’ to describe human behaviour. LMA is a method and language for describing, visualising and documenting the movement of humans and is, for instance, used by dancers. The primary categories of this elaborate system consist of Body, Effort, Shape and Space (or BESS). Later, other scholars added Relationship and Phrasing.

I could not get it confirmed, but?(spoiler alert!)?I think they used some form of LMA in the dance notations in the secret diary of Danielle Wexler, the wife of Segev Azulai in?Hit & Run.?This Netflix series, with Lior Raz as Segev, is from the creators of the famous Israeli series, “Fauda”.

Kanan Tandi ?drew our attention to the problem of violence (predominantly against women) in Indian public transport. Her analysis to identify likely molesters is the conclusion of a survey (both questionnaire and in-depth interviews) of 394 participants who travelled daily by bus or train. The survey describes eating/non-eating situations, invading personal space, staring/glaring, accidental touches, and the like before or during the reported touch and non-touch incidents. She said that sometimes (thank God) non-confrontational exclamations like “Excuse me, can I help you, sir?” or “Do you know me?” were enough to deter the (potential) molesters. She gave an excellent and clear presentation, even though she had to deliver it through Zoom with some time delays.

With all the examples of human speech and body language, you can easily forget that written texts can also tell us something about (harmful) intent. Enter Prof.? Nazar Akrami , Department of Psychology, Perception and Cognition, Uppsala University, Sweden, who brought us up to speed with opportunities and pitfalls of risk assessment using text analysis. And with the advent of our digital lifestyles and social media frenzy, we reveal more (personal) texts to the world than ever before.

He and his colleagues now have a computer model that can quickly adjust to new lines of research, like finding out if (some writings) indicate suicidal tendencies or that a body of texts reveals adherence to the InCel movement of other subgroups.

For something completely different: the professor showed a picture of the Codex Hammurabi on his first slide. Always lovely to see that my six years of Assyriology were not wasted ;-).?

Catherine Piana ?(CoESS and ASSA-i) and?Jacqui Hames (former Met detective and co-presenter of BBC’s Crimewatch) skillfully moderated the discussions.?

The closing panel consisted of?Itzik Ashkenazi?(Israel),?Aynabat Atayeva?(Chief International Hub on Behavioural Insights to Counter Terrorism, UNOCT, Qatar),?Ng See Chong?(Singapore),?Krystyna Ljubymenko (Czech Republic),?Pauline Norstrom (UK), and?Diana Nowek (Austria).

At the end of this second day,?Aaron Garner (stepping in for?Cliff Lansley) of UK’s Emotional Intelligence Academy drew our attention to the SCAnR six-channel analysis system, which caught four times as many malfeasants and 60% fewer false positives than a control group in a European airport. Aaron’s lecture ended another long day with more food for thought than you can eat.

Tomorrow: Day Three.

Post Scriptum: See you all at the Behavioural Analysis Conference 2024 in London, 21-23 May.