Paying lip service to checks is extremely common - its something I can guarantee everyone has done at some time or other.
Who has not found at some stage that he has just sung out the checks that he has learnt off by heart like lines from a play, but hasnt actually done the checks that they represent? Its something I have seen in myself particularly when I'm on my own, in a hurry or with a high workload, and I have to catch myself and force myself to do it again properly.
Students in the simulator I see all the time doing the same thing : "Landing gear down, 3 greens blah, blah, blah...." You have to stop them and say "Is it down? Are you sure?" and then they notice that they have a gear failure, and there were no "greens" at all.
I can only guess that exactly the same thing can happen in the back of the aircraft, and anywhere else for that matter where checks are done under any form of stress.