I grew up very deaf. I went to mainstream schools, I did everything everyone else would do... except hear much at all. I wore hearing aids which helped somewhat, but that just makes all that jumbled noise louder, which isn't that helpful.
I was deaf since birth. So at a very early age I picked up body-language, micro-expressions and of course lip-reading which were rather an integral way for me to communicate!
> "The problem is the huge variety of human behaviour – there is no universal dictionary of body language"
Um. Yes there is. Everyone uses body-language. Everyone uses their mouth, their eyes and their hands. Take in sign language. While it's not the same in every country, someone fluent in any sign language can understand BSL (Brazil Sign Language) or NZSL (New Zealand...), ASL etc. Why? Because sign language is the most literal thing you can think of. If I look at someone and point to them, then point to someone else, what do you suppose that means? The only issue is local dialect/slang which is easy enough to figure out.
I'd like this BBC article to try this on deaf people and see what the results would be. It would be extremely different. Even for people who just wear hearing aids: a frown, does not mean anger... it means they're trying to understand you. If that person misheard a previous question, but then didn't mishear it the second time then... are they lying? No.
For myself in particular, when I was trying to have conversation with people I had a few difficulties. For this, think of dyslexia, say the brains language processor. For some people with dyslexia an example sentence could look like: "I ___ to ___ shop ___ the ______ ____ ___ car". It's exactly the same for someone who is deaf. However, they need to be working that language processor in their head 300% capacity. Not only are you lip-reading, using sound from your hearing aids, you're factoring in context, location, the person talking to you, body-language and so on. So a deaf person, will then fill in those blanks in my above example and hope they got it right. Except, by that stage, more has been said and you're now trying to remember what was said just a few minutes ago. Then you're defeated.
However, if you watched my body language in ann airport you'd probably shoot me or whatever customs does. I'd be the ideal 'liar' that this BBC article refers to.
Since I got my cochlear implant, (I jumped from 4% hearing to something like 80% upwards) my world has grown incredibly. Not only do I have my previous skills, but I can now add verbal input into my once stressed language processor. It's incredible what I can pick up on. Now that I have that extra sense/input, I find that I can tell whether someone is not being truthful or honest. Another poster here said that "give them enough rope to hang themselves with" and that's very true. Someone rambling? Watch their hands. Someone straight to the point, confident, and uses no body language -- very confident of themselves. So simply throw them off. Does their attitude change? If it does, what does that mean? Context comes into play here, and customs simply don't have the time. Nor will Police.
Someone trying to explain the minute details of their drive to work, watch their eyes and see where they go (looks you in the eye, wall, phone?). Then stop. Who exactly remembers details that they've got no reason to remember? So they'll tell the short version, 'cos they have done it 1,000 times. Then if you're probed such as this article says... you'll end up getting anxious, and contradict yourself. "oh, maybe I did take Stuart Street...".
I am a firm believer that body language is really a good way to determine language nuances, even in different languages. It works. I've been friends with people who didn't know English, but I could communicate with them effectively enough. Giving someone a few weeks of body language training, is going to do squat. Getting experts, again I'm not sure -- have they ever had to rely on it? Perhaps they should wear headphones with whitenoise and interrogate people, with someone who is listening -- and compare notes.
I kind of feel like writing a blog post to refute this article, with proper examples etc. Would anyone be interested?
I apologise if I sound disjointed it's 3am in NZ right now, and I just had the need to go "no this is not quite right".
P.S. When I went to Singapore, a customs person glared at me and nodded to the guy with the gun and so I smiled and I said, "Hi! I hope you haven't had a horrible night so far -- hopefully my documentation is in order and you'll not have to deal with boring stuff!" and she went from >:{ to :-) and nodded to the gun guy walking behind me, who turned around back to his spot. I got all that from a split second glance. It's actually even easier for me now with my implant to do this sort of thing in case actual spoken communication is required.
EDIT: As per article, it is common sense -- but you need to know someone well enough to take judgement, which these guys have no time for. Speaking for myself, I learned over a long period of time to do that as quick as possible. Otherwise, I'd have been left to fail.