Assessing between-officer variability in responses to a live-acted deadly force encounter as a window to the effectiveness of training and experience

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2024

Journal / Book Title

Ergonomics

Abstract

We aimed to infer the effectiveness of officers’ training and experience by assessing consistency of behavioural responses between them. If officers facing the same scenario respond in similar ways, this implies their use of shared cognition, through acquired in-common tactical knowledge. Officers (n = 42) responded to a live-acted scenario in which an assailant ultimately discharged his weapon. Triangulated camera positions assessed their movement patterns, final positions, and weapon responses relative to when the assailant fired his weapon. We also assessed the officers’ visual search and gathered information regarding their experience and rest. Our second aim was to examine sources of variability in the officers’ responses. We found extensive variability in all aspects of the response. Experience did not impact spatial or temporal behavioural responses. However, longer hours awake and lower reported rest negatively impacted officers’ responses. We conclude that officers had insufficient training and experience to demonstrate in-common knowledge. Practitioner summary: Police officers showed high spatial and temporal variability in response to the same scenario. This implies inadequate tactical training, and is supported by our finding that training and experience did not impact performance. Instead, the officers’ variability was constrained by their visual search, and the hours awake before being tested.

DOI

10.1080/00140139.2023.2278416

Journal ISSN / Book ISBN

85178478530 (Scopus)

Rights

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Citation

R. Horn, R., J. Lewinski, W., Sandri Heidner, G., Lawton, J., Allen, C., Albin, M. W., & P. Murray, N. (2023). Assessing between-officer variability in responses to a live-acted deadly force encounter as a window to the effectiveness of training and experience. Ergonomics, 67(8), 1035–1050. https://doi.org/10.1080/00140139.2023.2278416

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