This is very interesting from the point of view of what has been called the “Telepathic-Empathic” scale. It is not ESP, but in ordinary human communication, it is the difference between “narrow band” and “wide band” communication.
A sort of common “telepathy” is the ability a lot of people have to correctly extrapolate data being given them by another person. Most often, those people who can complete your sentences when you are talking to them. They use some mental tricks to “fill in the blanks” and figure out what you are going to say.
It is very focused on speech alone, and information data in particular, and so can be called “narrow band”. Unfortunately, it has little or no error checking, which lends it to inaccuracy.
On the other side of the scale, and where these SEALs, and other elite forces fit it, is with “empathy” or “wide band” communication. They are simultaneously paying attention to all sorts of things, such as body language, speech inflection, eye movement, possibly their scent (subconsciously); and if there are more than one of them, how they are interacting with each other.
What they are saying is just another element, or part of this. From the point of view of the SEAL, for example, if they are saying that they are friendly, but most everything else is suggesting that they are not, the SEAL is going to be very alert for mischief.
Very wide band. But it would make a great deal of sense for an elite warrior to become very adept at empathy, because his life might depend on it.
Neuro Linguistic Programming