How to Read Intentions and Miscommunication in Real Life

The clip captures a phenomenon that we study in psychology called indirect speech, which allows for misinterpretation of intentions. Such miscommunications can be trivial but they can also sometimes have life and death sequences. A police officer might have to make a split second decision about whether a suspect is reaching into a pocket to grab a selphone or to grab a gun. How he reads those intentions could be shaped by all manner of factors, including bias.