Nicholas D. Duran

Detecting stress-related physiological changes, even before subjective awareness of these changes, allows for earlier intervention. Consumer wearables now make naturalistic stress research feasible at scale, yet many return coarse heart rate (HR) estimates in beats per minute rather than the millisecond-resolution interbeat intervals that established psychophysiological frameworks assume. In this feasibility study, we collected continuous Fitbit data over 12–23 weeks from 33 police academy trainees, paired with self-reports issued by a custom on-device application when heart rate exceeded an individualized threshold. We treated coarse HR/HRV data streams not as degraded signals but as a different measurement object, one suited to describing how cardiac activity is organized over time. We adopted a flexibility–structure framework that views cardiac dynamics as organized variability across timescales, operationalized through fourteen features in four theoretically motivated families. Using a two-stage analytic strategy that paired cross-validated prediction with explanatory modeling, we identified a signature we termed “constrained unpredictability” in the 90 minutes preceding stress reports: the operating band narrows, local unpredictability within it increases, and the series dwells longer in particular cardiac states. These findings suggest that cardiac dynamics can be informative in preceding stress experience among police trainees. We argue that the gap between consumer wearables and traditional psychophysiology is not a ceiling but a space for principled descriptive science, in which empirical questions and analytic methods are matched to the signal that is actually available.

Despite research on case factors that can trigger confirmation bias in investigations leading to wrongful convictions, we know little about what sparks this chain reaction and why an innocent person initially falls under suspicion. Across four studies, we investigated what perceived behaviors exhibited by 911 callers (urgency, emotionality, cognitive load, impression management, and information management) are related to laypeople's (Studies 1, 2, and 4) and police officers' (Study 3) suspicion toward the caller. We predicted, for lay and police samples, callers perceived as more urgent or emotional would be perceived as less suspicious, whereas callers perceived as more under cognitive load, managing information, or managing impressions of themselves would be perceived as more suspicious. We tested whether these relationships depended on caller gender-predicting gender stereotypes might play a role, particularly with emotionality. Participants (Studies 1, 2, and 4: online laypeople; Study 3: police officers) listened to a real 911 call (Studies 1 and 4) or a more controlled, simulated 911 call (Studies 2 and 3) by a male or female caller. We assessed behavioral predictors associated with suspicion via participants' spontaneous impressions and scales assessing these behaviors. Participants indicated how suspicious they found the caller and how much the caller violated their expectations. Participants spontaneously mentioned the callers' emotionality most frequently and consistently across studies (77%-85%). Perceptions of callers being more urgent and emotional were associated with less suspicion and violation of expectations, while perceptions of callers engaging in more information management and impression management were associated with more suspicion and violation of expectations. Police, but not laypeople, perceived male callers as more suspicious than female callers-despite holding 911 call scripts constant. Citizens engaging in the well-intentioned act of calling 911 risk observers-including police-holding expectations for their behavior and targeting them as a suspect if they violate those expectations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Despite research on case factors that can trigger confirmation bias in investigations leading to wrongful convictions, we know little about what sparks this chain reaction and why an innocent person initially falls under suspicion. Across four studies, we investigated what perceived behaviors exhibited by 911 callers (urgency, emotionality, cognitive load, impression management, and information management) are related to laypeople’s (Studies 1-2, 4) and police officers’ (Study 3) suspicion toward the caller. Hypotheses: We predicted, for lay and police samples, callers perceived as more urgent or emotional would be perceived as less suspicious, whereas callers perceived as more under cognitive load, managing information, or managing impressions of themselves would be perceived as more suspicious. We tested whether these relationships depended on caller gender—predicting gender stereotypes might play a role, particularly with emotionality. Method: Participants (Studies 1-2, 4: online laypeople, Study 3: police officers) listened to a real 911 call (Studies 1 and 4) or a more controlled, simulated 911 call (Studies 2 and 3) by a male or female caller. We assessed behavioral predictors associated with suspicion via participants’ spontaneous impressions and scales assessing these behaviors. Participants indicated how suspicious they found the caller and how much the caller violated their expectations. Results: Participants spontaneously mentioned the callers’ emotionality most frequently and consistently across studies (77-85%). Perceptions of callers being more urgent and emotional were associated with less suspicion and violation of expectations, while perceptions of callers engaging in more information management and impression management were associated with more suspicion and violation of expectations. Police, but not laypeople, perceived male callers as more suspicious than female callers—despite holding 911 call scripts constant. Conclusion: Citizens engaging in the well-intentioned act of calling 911 risk observers—including police—holding expectations for their behavior and targeting them as a suspect if they violate those expectations.

Coming to suspect that someone has engaged in wrongdoing based on their unexpected behavior is a common phenomenon-yet, little is known about what triggers initial suspicion. We investigated how violating expectations for high emotionality during a traumatic event can trigger suspicion that one has engaged in immoral-or even criminal-activity through moral typecasting. Five studies demonstrate this theory in a criminal context with dire real-world consequences: 911 callers reporting violent crimes generating suspicion by exhibiting unexpected behavior, which could trigger confirmation bias in investigations leading to wrongful convictions. Using both real and tightly controlled simulated 911 calls, we demonstrated that failing to express the expected level of emotion on a 911 call reporting a violent crime led laypeople and police to morally typecast the caller as more of a moral agent capable of perpetrating immoral acts and less of a moral patient capable of being the victim of immoral acts-ultimately increasing suspicion that they were involved in the crime and support for treating them as a suspect. We advance moral psychological theory by demonstrating that failing to express expected levels of emotion about a moral violation can shape moral inferences about someone's capacity to commit versus be the victim of moral wrongs, thereby generating suspicion that they might have engaged in wrongdoing. We demonstrated this theory in criminal settings to explain how one tragedy can become two: altruistic witnesses calling 911 to plead for help on behalf of another person becoming suspects of the crime they reported because they failed to exhibit the expected emotional demeanor. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Coming to suspect someone has engaged in wrongdoing based on their unexpected behavior is acommon phenomenon—yet little is known about what triggers initial suspicion. We investigatedhow violating expectations for high emotionality during a traumatic event can trigger suspicionthat one has engaged in immoral—or even criminal—activity through moral typecasting. Fivestudies demonstrate this theory in a criminal context with dire real-world consequences: 911callers reporting violent crimes generating suspicion by exhibiting unexpected behavior, whichcould trigger confirmation bias in investigations leading to wrongful convictions. Using both realand tightly controlled, simulated 911 calls, we demonstrated that failing to express the expectedlevel of emotion on a 911 call reporting a violent crime led laypeople and police to morallytypecast the caller as more of a moral agent capable of perpetrating immoral acts and less of amoral patient capable of being the victim of immoral acts—ultimately increasing suspicion thatthey were involved in the crime and support for treating them as a suspect. We advance moralpsychological theory by demonstrating that failing to express expected levels of emotion about amoral violation can shape moral inferences about someone’s capacity to commit versus be thevictim of moral wrongs, thereby generating suspicion that they might have engaged inwrongdoing. We demonstrated this theory in criminal settings to explain how one tragedy canbecome two: altruistic witnesses calling 911 to plead for help becoming suspects of the crimethey reported because they failed to exhibit the expected emotional demeanor.

Coming to suspect someone has engaged in wrongdoing based on their unexpected behavior is a common phenomenon—yet little is known about what triggers initial suspicion. We investigate how violating expectations for high emotionality during a traumatic event can trigger suspicion that one has engaged in immoral—or even criminal—activity through moral typecasting. Five studies demonstrate this theory in a criminal context with dire real-world consequences: 911 callers reporting violent crimes generating suspicion due to unexpected behavior, which could trigger confirmation bias in investigations leading to wrongful convictions. Using both real and tightly controlled, simulated 911 calls, we demonstrate that failing to express the expected level of emotion on a 911 call reporting a violent crime leads laypeople and police to morally typecast the caller as more of a moral agent capable of perpetrating immoral acts and less of a moral patient capable of being the victim of immoral acts—ultimately increasing suspicion they were involved in the crime and support for treating them as a suspect. We advance moral-psychological theory by demonstrating that failing to express expected levels of emotion about a moral violation can shape moral inferences about someone’s capacity to commit versus be the victim of moral wrongs, thereby generating suspicion that they might have engaged in wrongdoing. We demonstrate this theory in criminal settings to explain how one tragedy can become two: altruistic witnesses calling 911 to plead for help becoming suspects of the crime they reported because they failed to exhibit expected emotional demeanor.

Multi-level vector autoregression (mlVAR) is a recently developed dynamic network model for assessing multimodal temporal data streams derived from multiple users over time. Importantly, mlVAR facilitates investigations into highly complex collaborative interactions within a unified framework. In order to demonstrate the utility of mlVAR for understanding the temporal dynamics of multimodal multi-party (MMP) interactions, we apply it to 9 signals measured from 201 users (67 triads) who engaged in a 15-minute collaborative problem solving task. Measured signals reflect participants’ affective states (positive valence and negative valence), physiological states (skin conductance and heart rate), attention (gaze fixation duration and gaze dispersion), nonverbal communication (head acceleration and facial expressiveness), and verbal communication (speech rate). Using node-level metrics of in-strength, out-strength, and synchrony, we show that mlVAR is capable of teasing apart complex role-based dynamics (controller, primary contributor, or secondary contributor) between participants. Our findings also provide evidence for a complex feedback system between individuals where internal states (i.e., skin conductance) are influenced by external signals of shared attention and communication (i.e., gaze and speech).

Co-creating meaning in collaboration is challenging. Success is often determined by people’s abilities to coordinate their language to converge upon shared mental representations. Here we explore one set of low-level linguistic behaviors, linguistic alignment, that both emerges from, and facilitates, outcomes of high-level convergence. Linguistic alignment captures the ways people re-use, i.e., “align to,” the lexical, syntactic, and semantic forms of others’ utterances. Our focus is on the temporal change of multi-level linguistic alignment, as well as how alignment is related to communicative outcomes within a unique collaborative problem-solving paradigm. The primary task, situated within a virtual educational video game, requires creative thinking between three people where the paths for possible solutions are highly variable. We find that over time interactions are marked by decreasing lexical and syntactic alignment, with a trade-off of increasing semantic alignment. However, greater semantic alignment does not translate into better team performance. Overall, these findings provide greater clarity on the role of linguistic coordination within complex and dynamic collaborative problem-solving tasks.