Experience-Dependent Effects to Situational Awareness in Police Officers : An Eye Tracking Study

Police work requires making suitable observations which form the basis of situational awareness (SA) of the encounter in progress. Incomplete early-stage SA (i.e., perception) can lead to errors in subsequent judgement and decision-making that can have severe consequences for performance, learning, and occupational health. SA in police contexts is still relatively understudied and requires closer examination using objective measures. The current preliminary study aimed to measure the gaze and fixation patterns among novice and expert police officers to understand early-stage SA at different levels of professional experience. Participants included 23 novices (10 early, 13 intermediate) and 11 experienced officers and instructors in tactics and use of force. Visit duration and fixation order were measured while participants viewed various static images of staged encounters. Results showed that all participants fixated longer on targets compared to the periphery, and fixated earlier on suspects’ faces compared to hands, bodies, or the environment. Further, experts fixated earlier on hands and spent less time scanning the environment than early novices. The current findings reveal eye movement patterns while officers engaged in typical police encounters. Future research can inform evidence-based police training to achieve optimal SA and minimize negative outcomes in training and operational field settings.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

Paying attention to the evidence: a comparison of perception and decision making processes in novice and experienced scene of crime officers using eye tracking in simulated crime scene scenarios

Research on crime scene investigation has strongly focused on the technical aspects of the process, while cognitive aspects (searching, reasoning and perception) have often been overlooked. Textbooks on forensic sciences tend to focus on identifying and processing evidence, and the use of equipment while it can be argued that cognitive factors in processing such evidence and using equipment are equally important. This thesis studies the cognitive aspects of crime scene investigation by comparing eye movement patterns in experts and novices. Studies in various domains, including surgery, sports, and chess playing have shown that eye movements differ between experts and novices, providing a tool towards a more objective assessment of skill than is possible with peer assessment. In four experiments eye movements of experts and novices were examined during (1) inspection of photographs of crime scenes on a computer screen (2) a change blindness task on crime and non-crime scene images, (3) active exploration of a simulated crime scene and (4) the assessment of emotional crime and natural scenes. While some trends in eye movement differences, such as a tendency on longer fixation durations and a broader focus on the overall scene and less on the direct evidence could be found in experts compared to novices, differences between experts and novices were considerably smaller than in other domains, despite the broad range of measures extracted from the data. This lack of clear expertise effects may relate to the rather diverse range of perceptual layouts of crime scenes, reducing possible top-down effects of expertise on the deployment of attention. The results will be discussed with a view of possible directions of future research in this domain

Situational Awareness in Operational Police Encounters : How is it formed, what factors influence it and how it can be trained

Taitoa ja kykyä muodostaa tilannetietoisuus voidaan pitää kaikkein tärkeimpänä ja kriittisempiä taitona poliisin ammatissa, sillä kaikki poliisitoiminta kuten päätösten tekeminen, taktiikan valinta ja voimakeinojen käyttämisen arviointi ja keinot perustuvat tai niiden tulisi perustua tilannetietoisuuteen. Tässä väitöskirjassa määritellään poliisin operatiivisessa toiminnassa vaadittava tilannetietoisuus; miten tilannetietoisuus muodostuu, mitä se sisältää ja mitkä tekijät vaikuttavat siihen sekä miten poliisitoimintaan liittyvää tilannetietoisuuden opetusta voidaan kehittää. Tämä väitöskirja sisältää neljä osatutkimusta, joissa jokaisessa poliisityöhön liittyvää tilannetietoisuutta pyritään selvittämään erilaisilla tutkimuskysymyksillä ja menetelmillä. Ensimmäisessä teoreettisessa tutkimuksessa keskitytään selvittämään sitä, mitä poliisin operatiiviseen toimintaan liittyvästä tilannetietoisuudesta on aikaisemmin tiedetty ja sitä mitä pitäisi edelleen tutkia, sekä selvitetään motoristen taitojen oppimisen ja tilannetietoisuuden oppimisen välistä yhteyttä. Toisessa osatutkimuksessa tutkitaan tilannetietoisuuteen liittyvää toimintaa ja käyttäytymistä empiirisen tutkimusasetelman avulla sekä selvitetään tutkimuksessa määriteltyjen käyttäytymisen ulottuvuuksien ja yksilöllisen persoonallisuuden piirteiden välistä yhteyttä. Väitöskirjan toisessa empiirisessä tutkimusasetelmassa selvitetään katseen käyttäytymistä sekä käsitteellistetään nimenomaan poliisitoimintaan liittyvä tilannetietoisuus käyttämällä kvalitatiivisia menetelmiä. Väitöskirjan tulokset käsittelevät poliisin tilannetietoisuuden kouluttamiseen ja käytäntöihin liittyviä poliisin koulutuksen maailmanlaajuisia haasteita; poliisityöhön liittyvää tilannetietoisuutta ei ole koskaan aikaisemmin määritelty tai operationalisoitu, ja se on ollut merkittävä rajoitus tilannetietoisuuden ja operatiivisen poliisitoiminnan opetukselle ja koulutukselle sekä niiden kehittämiselle. Tämä väitöstutkimus osoittaa, että poliisin tilannetietoisuuteen liittyvät elementit voidaan tunnistaa, määritellä ja niitä on mahdollista opettaa. Väitöskirja paljastaa ja määrittelee kuusi käyttäytymisen ulottuvuutta, jotka vaikuttavat tilannetietoisuuteen ja/tai poliisin toimintaan joko positiivisesti tai negatiivisesti sekä näiden ulottuvuuksien ja persoonallisuuden piirteiden välisiä yhteyksiä. Väitöskirjassa selvitetään millä tavoin kokeneet poliisit pyrkivät keräämään tietoa erilaisissa kohtaamisissa. Lopuksi väitöskirjassa tunnistetaan ja määritellään kokeneiden poliisien, eksperttien käyttämät seitsemän erityistä teemaa/elementtiä, joiden avulla voidaan muodostaa operatiivisen poliisitoiminnan edellyttämä tilannetietoisuus.The formation of situational awareness can be seen as the most critical and important skill in the police profession, as all other activities of the police, such as decision-making, tactics, and the use of force, are or should be based on situational awareness. This dissertation defines the situational awareness required in the operational work situations of police, what it consists of and is formed by, what factors affect it, and how its teaching can be developed. The dissertation consists of four sub-studies, each of which examined the situational awareness of the police through a variety of research questions and settings. Some of the sub-studies examined what was previously known about situational awareness specific to the police, what should be investigated, and the link between the learning of police situational awareness and other motor skills. The dissertation also studied behaviour and activity related to situational awareness in simulated training tasks and examined the relationship between newly defined behavioural dimensions and individual personality traits. The second empirical study design in this dissertation examined gaze behaviour and used qualitative methods to conceptualize police-specific situational awareness. The results of the dissertation address global challenges of police education relating to the training and practices of police situational awareness, which has so far not been defined or operationalized and is a major limitation for teaching and training. This research shows that elements related to police situational awareness can be identified, defined, and taught. The dissertation revealed and defined six behavioural dimensions that affect situational awareness and/or police activity either positively or negatively, as well as the relationship between these dimensions and personality traits. The dissertation identified the ways in which officers try to collect information in various encounters. Finally, the dissertation identified and defined seven specific themes that when taken into account can form the specific situational awareness of the police

Development of a cross-cultural hazard perception test

This thesis is concerned with the development of a culturally-agnostic version of the UK hazard perception (HP) test, with the ultimate hope of providing a road safety assessment tool that can be exported to different countries whilst retaining its diagnostic validity. This aim was inspired by the United Nations Decade of Action on Road Safety (2010-2020), which was instigated to reduce the global burden of road deaths. The first three experiments explored the various design elements of a future global blueprint for hazard perception testing. Unfortunately, none of these studies revealed a difference between UK experienced and novice drivers, considered important for test validity. When the test was compared across three countries (using clips and participants from China, Spain and the UK; experiment 4), the experience difference was still elusive, though cultural differences were evident. To address the lack of validity, a new HP test-variant was developed: a hazard prediction test. This test presents the same driving clips to viewers, but the screen is occluded at the point of hazard onset and participants are asked "What happens next?". In a UK sample, experiment 5 finally showed an experiential difference. When taken back to China and Spain (experiment 6), the overall experiential difference remained, while cultural differences were ameliorated. Following further development of the hazard prediction protocol (experiment 7), the test was applied to a brand new cultural context in Israel. Once again, the hazard prediction test was successful in differentiating between safe and less-safe drivers on the basis of experience. In conclusion, the hazard prediction test appears to be a more robust methodology for international export, ostensibly reducing problems of criterion bias, subjective judgements on scoring windows, and language difficulties in explaining what a hazard is. The final chapter summarises this blueprint for a culturally-agnostic hazard test, and recommends the protocol be adopted globally

Applied Cognitive Sciences

Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary field in the study of the mind and intelligence. The term cognition refers to a variety of mental processes, including perception, problem solving, learning, decision making, language use, and emotional experience. The basis of the cognitive sciences is the contribution of philosophy and computing to the study of cognition. Computing is very important in the study of cognition because computer-aided research helps to develop mental processes, and computers are used to test scientific hypotheses about mental organization and functioning. This book provides a platform for reviewing these disciplines and presenting cognitive research as a separate discipline

Expert knowledge elicitation in the firefighting domain and the implications for training novices

Background/Purpose: Experienced fireground commanders are often required to make important decisions in time-pressured and dynamic environments that are characterized by a wide range of task constraints. The nature of these environments is such that firefighters are sometimes faced with novel situations that seek to challenge their expertise and therefore necessitate making knowledge-based as opposed to rule-based decisions. The purpose of this study is to elicit the tacitly held knowledge which largely underpinned expert competence when managing non-routine fire incidents. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study utilized a formal knowledge elicitation tool known as the critical decision method (CDM). The CDM method was preferred to other cognitive task analysis (CTA) methods as it is specifically designed to probe the cognitive strategies of domain experts with reference to a single incident that was both challenging and memorable. Thirty experienced firefighters and one staff development officer were interviewed in-depth across different fire stations in the UK and Nigeria (UK=15, Nigeria=16). The interview transcripts were analyzed using the emergent themes analysis (ETA) approach. Findings: Findings from the study revealed 42 salient cues that were sought by experts at each decision point. A critical cue inventory (CCI) was developed and cues were categorized into five distinct types based on the type of information each cue generated to an incident commander. The study also developed a decision making model — information filtering and intuitive decision making model (IFID), which describes how the experienced firefighters were able to make difficult fireground decisions amidst multiple informational sources without having to deliberate on their courses of action. The study also compiled and indexed the elicited tacit knowledge into a competence assessment framework (CAF) with which the competence of future incident commanders could potentially be assessed. Practical Implications: Through the knowledge elicitation process, training needs were identified, and the practical implications for transferring the elicited experts’ knowledge to novice firefighters were also discussed. The four component instructional design model aided the conceptualization of the CDM outputs for training purposes. Originality/Value: Although it is widely believed that experts perform exceptionally well in their domains of practice, the difficulty still lies in finding how best to unmask expert (tacit) knowledge, particularly when it is intended for training purposes. Since tacit knowledge operates in the unconscious realm, articulating and describing it has been shown to be challenging even for experts themselves. This study is therefore timely since its outputs can facilitate the development of training curricula for novices, who then will not have to wait for real fires to occur before learning new skills. This statement holds true particularly in this era where the rate of real fires and therefore the opportunity to gain experience has been on a decline. The current study also presents and discusses insights based on the cultural differences that were observed between the UK and the Nigerian fire service

The influence of mood and cognitive load on driver performance: using multiple measures to assess safety

Emotions and moods are an inevitable part of human life. Previous research suggests that positive and negative moods affect human performance in many aspects: decision making, perception, reasoning and memory. The influence of mood on drivers’ behaviour has been studied to a less extent and mainly with respect to negative emotions. The studies reported in this thesis are based on psychological theories regarding the differences in the effects of positive and negative moods on information processing and mind wandering. The thesis describes two studies: a desktop study and a driving simulator study, which measure drivers’ responses to the actions of other traffic, their observational patterns and driving behaviours in a variety of scenarios. The effects of neutral, happy, sad and angry moods were studied. The simulator study also investigated possible ways to disconnect drivers’ minds from mood induced mind wandering by using different types of cognitive load. The results suggest that mood valence and arousal have different effects on driving safety, with negative moods resulting in the most dangerous driving. In order to draw conclusions about the effect of mood, a combination of multiple measures (e.g. glance patterns, driving performance and drivers’ physiological measures) should be analysed. The results also suggest that some amount of cognitive load, applied while driving, can have a positive effect on drivers’ attention. Further research is needed to establish the amount and type of the cognitive load necessary to improve drivers’ ability to maintain their attention on the driving task. Studies with a larger number of participants and field studies are needed to validate the findings. It is suggested that the findings are used to improve in-car assistance systems able to both detect the harmful effects of a driver’s emotional state and re-direct their attention to the primary task of driving

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Europe Chapter 2014 Annual Conference:Human Factors in high reliability industries

On the occasion of the 2014 Meeting in Lisbon, Portuga

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Europe Chapter 2014 Annual Conference:Human Factors in high reliability industries

On the occasion of the 2014 Meeting in Lisbon, Portuga

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Europe Chapter 2014 Annual Conference:Human Factors in high reliability industries

On the occasion of the 2014 Meeting in Lisbon, Portuga