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ROCKAWAY — How do soldiers know what will happen when they fire rubber bullets into a hostile crowd?

How do Marines know if shining a beam of light in a driver’s eyes will be enough to deter the vehicle as it approaches a checkpoint?

What percentage of a mob can be turned away by a piercing sound?

The answers are found in Building 3518 — a single-story warehouse in Morris County that’s in need of a fresh coat of paint. The building on Lake Denmark Road, which you would be forgiven for never noticing, is a couple of miles from the entrance to Picatinny Arsenal, the Army’s research and development site in Rockaway Township.

Inside, past the cafeteria and the restrooms, is the Army’s only behavioral-science laboratory where real-live volunteers, young and old, men and women, learn what it’s like to be on the business end of a baton or hit with a laser that makes your skin feel like it’s on fire.

Picatinny Arsenal is best known for developing weapons, and engineers on base can tell you in precise detail how each one works. In Building 3518 — also known as the Target Behavioral Response Laboratory — the nine-member team can tell you why they work. And when dealing with non-lethal weapons, that is the most important information a soldier can have.

"I can’t just shoot a laser or loud sound at a piece of wood and expect it to run away," said John Riedener, the lab’s technical director. "We need to know how well it chases someone away. It’s all about data, controlled experiments. It’s about the probabilities of what can happen."

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Applicants are screened so the Army does not end up with all male volunteers or a group all under the age of 30. The research requires a wide swath of the population to measure the effectiveness of the experiments. Flyers are put in libraries and college campuses.

Volunteers — paid $20 per hour — sign an informed consent form alerting them there is a chance of serious or even permanent injury, and all experiments are conducted under the purview of Picatinny’s Institutional Review Board and the Army’s Human Research Protections Office. There have been no serious injuries to date and volunteers can pull out at any time, said Charles Sheridan, research teaching specialist.

"We don’t want them to be surprised, but they have the right to run away," Sheridan said. "And that’s a data point for us."

In one experiment, about two dozen volunteers are given bean bags, which are stand-ins for rocks, and told to deposit them in slots about 20 feet in front of them. But between the volunteers and those slots are one or two men in riot gear, each wielding a baton with a painted tip.

Let the games begin.

CROWD PSYCHOLOGY

Researchers can learn a lot about crowd psychology by seeing how many of the volunteers are motivated enough to receive a thwack from the baton. Researchers increase the motivation by offering a cash bonus to those who can get the most bean bags in the slot. Volunteers wear motion sensors, which allow their every movement to be tracked by a computer that dissects how they act, and then how they react. Preliminary research showed threats of monetary loss were more effective at suppressing the mock crowd than pain.

Volunteers, who were not allowed to be interviewed for this story, fill out questionnaires that give insight into their personality to give researchers an idea of who is more prone to be courageous or cowardly.

"We want to know what’s going on in the (volunteer’s) head," said Elizabeth Mezzacappa, who has a doctorate in medical psychology. "We want to get into the brains of these people."

What does it take to deter a highly motivated enemy from charging a target? How much force is necessary to disperse a crowd? How bright does a light have to be to distract a sniper?

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"We assess fear in a lot of different ways," Riedener said.

The information gathered in these experiments can prove vital on the battlefield, the researchers say.

Suppose a menacing crowd begins to gather around a convoy traveling down a narrow road. Soldiers want to disperse the crowd but it does no good to have people writhing in pain on the street in front of the convoy. So what is the most effective action?

To find out, volunteers are subjected to a piercing sound as a "souped-up golf cart" drives by. Ideally, the sound is loud enough to dissuade the volunteers from hanging around.

A well-tested, well-understood non-lethal weapon serves another purpose: If a soldier knows it will deter all but the most determined enemy, then anyone who continues to approach probably means the soldier serious harm.

"Under this condition, the non-lethal weapon becomes a lethality enabler or assists in lethal target selection," Mezzacappa wrote in one of the many papers the team has produced.

WHAT WORKS BEST?

One of the most dangerous missions for a soldier is room-entry. A soldier can’t know what is behind that door and can’t shoot indiscriminately. The situation calls for a non-lethal weapon, but what is the most effective choice?

To test that scenario, a volunteer stands in the middle of a small room facing a door. A soldier is going to come through that door. The volunteer, who has been screened to ensure he or she is a decent shot, will try to "shoot" the soldier. Just before the door swings open a bright light will flash. Is it bright enough to make the volunteer miss the target? Which color light is most effective? Does strobing make a difference?

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"Can we make them miss?" Riedener said. "We’re looking for increased latency, which means making it more difficult for them to distinguish the target, which leads to a delay. Does the placement of the flash bang have an impact?"

And as much as soldiers can learn from these experiments, the researchers can learn a lot from soldiers.

There was a concern the rubber bullets were not packing enough punch. One experiment has a volunteer stand in front of two paint ball guns designed to look like M4 assault rifles. The volunteer pushes a button and is shot with paint balls in the chest and stomach. Would the volunteer do it again? How about for another $50? If the answer is a quick and easy yes, maybe the paint balls don’t pack enough punch.

Many volunteers are repeat performers. Some do it for the money, Riedener said, while others do it out of a sense of patriotism and duty.

"You’re doing something that will help a soldier almost immediately," Riedener said. "They are coming out to help the soldier."