blue sense

The "blue sense" is a cop's intuition about impending danger, about whether a suspect is guilty, about whether someone's lying, about hunches regarding cases or people. The term is used by Lyons and Truzzi to refer to something akin to psychic power possessed by good cops. "It is that unknown quantity in the policeman's decision-making process that goes beyond what he can see and hear and smell." (Lyons and Truzzi, p. 11)

Studies have not validated the "blue sense," but there is good evidence that some people, including some cops, reliably infer others' emotions, intentions, and thoughts by their demeanor and facial expressions (Eckman and Friesen1975; Eckman and Rosenberg 1979).

See also psychic detective.

further reading

Darwin, Charles R. 1872/1998. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press.

Ekman, Paul and Wallace V. Friesen.1975. Unmasking the Face; a Guide to Recognizing Emotions from Facial Clues. Prentice-Hall.

Ekman Paul & Erika L. Rosenberg, eds. 1997. What The Face Reveals : Basic and Applied Studies of Spontaneous Expression Using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS). Oxford University Press.

Gladwell, Malcolm. 2002. “The Naked Face.” The New Yorker. Aug. 5.

Lyons, Arthur and Marcello Truzzi, The Blue Sense: Psychic Detectives and Crime (New York: The Mysterious Press, 1991).

Last updated 27-Oct-2015