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

Juha-Matti Huhta, Paula M. Di Nota, Veikko Surakka, Poika Isokoski and Eero Ropo
Additional contact information
Juha-Matti Huhta: Police University College of Finland, 33721 Tampere, Finland
Paula M. Di Nota: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6, Canada
Veikko Surakka: Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences, Tampere University, 33720 Tampere, Finland
Poika Isokoski: Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences, Tampere University, 33720 Tampere, Finland
Eero Ropo: Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, 33720 Tampere, Finland

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 9, 1-12

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: situational awareness; police; eye tracking; fixation; expertise; police encounters; visuomotor neuroscience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5047/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5047/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:9:p:5047-:d:798605

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().