About
51
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425
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Introduction
I am an associate professor in the Human Factors Ph.D. program at Wichita State University. My research interests focus on understanding and improving perceptual-cognitive performance (e.g., anticipation, decision making) in complex and challenging operational settings (e.g., law enforcement, security, military command and control, aviation, and emergency medicine).
Additional affiliations
March 2014 - July 2015
Publications
Publications (51)
Research focused on police officers’ decision-making in ambiguous use-of-force situations has yet to investigate the role that a suspect’s biological motion plays in unknown-object identification. The current study uses point-light displays to isolate the suspect’s motion and remove potentially biasing information (e.g., skin tone, facial expressio...
Purpose
Few studies have tested the efficacy of instruction based on cognitive load theory in police use-of-force (UoF) training due to limitations of existing cognitive load measures. Although linguistic measures of cognitive load address these limitations, they have yet to be applied to police UoF training. This study aims to discuss the aforemen...
The use of lethal force is a combination of threat perception and individual judgment that sometimes warrants a behavioral response. This simplified description implicates perceptual factors and individual differences in lethal force decision making, which ongoing research continues to address. However, personality-based factors have been less expl...
The few perceptual–cognitive expertise and deception studies in the domain of law enforcement have yet to examine perceptual–cognitive expertise differences of police trainees and police officers. The current study uses methods from the perceptual–cognitive expertise and deception models. Participants watched temporally occluded videos of actors ho...
Introduction
The objective of this study is to investigate the extent to which sighted persons understand thought processes of persons who are visually impaired (i.e., those who are blind or have low vision). The investigation focused on a street-crossing task.
Method
Participants were 15 visually impaired persons and 21 sighted persons. The sight...
Law enforcement officers across the country are trained in various tactics and techniques intended to increase the overall safety within a police-citizen contact. One common, albeit controversial tactic is referred to as “curb sitting”. The curb-sitting tactic is generally associated with officers requiring criminal suspects to sit on a curb with t...
The study of the sociology of scientific knowledge distinguishes between contributory and interactional experts. Contributory experts have practical expertise—they can “walk the walk.” Interactional experts have internalized the tacit components of expertise—they can “talk the talk” but are not able to reliably “walk the walk.” Interactional expert...
Stress can impact perception, especially during use-of-force. Research efforts can thus advance both theory and practice by examining how perception during use-of-force might drive behavior. The current study explored the relationship between perceptual judgments and performance during novel close-combat training. Analyses included perceptual judgm...
Body-worn cameras are becoming commonplace in law enforcement. Much of the research related to them focuses on whether the cameras affect police officer behavior and the number of citizen complaints against police. Relatively little attention has been focused on human factors and ergonomic issues related to the deployment of body-worn cameras. One...
Given the vast amount of evidence showing the substantial influence of emotion on decision-making, we examined emotionality—a person’s emotional reactivity to a stimulus—in police use-of-force decision-making between a sample of expert (n = 42) and novice (n = 36) officers. Officers observed body-worn camera footage and described the course of acti...
As early as the Vietnam War, the United States Military has employed various forms of night vision goggles (NVGs) to enhance warfighter capability under low light conditions. In recent years, the most common form of NVGs used by US ground forces has been the binocular or “dual tube” variety, such as the AN/PVS-15 and AN/PVS-31A. Compared to binocul...
The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of expertise research in law enforcement and guidance for those planning on conducting research themselves. The chapter begins by describing conceptualizations of expertise in law enforcement, and offers a working definition. The chapter then identifies challenges facing researchers interested in co...
Improving police use-of-force training is methodologically difficult. By providing a method for identifying the “expert” response to any given scenario, and by triangulating multiple methods, we aim to contribute towards police departments’ capacities to engage in more effective and targeted training. Forty-two police experts and 36 novices watched...
Signal Detection Theory (SDT) has been applied to examine expertise-related differences in perceptual judgments of deceptive and non-deceptive movements in sport (e.g., handball, soccer). Deceptive actions in sport-related tasks (i.e., faking in rugby, fake passes in basketball) affects anticipation performance in both novice and expert athletes (i...
Training for non-federal law enforcement agencies is subject to little regulation—training academies and education requirements often vary between departments—resulting in new officers with varying abilities and on-job proficiencies. The role of expertise can be evaluated in law enforcement and assessed to determine best practices for ideal on-job...
Heuristic evaluation is a useful tool for non-usability experts to evaluate their product for usability and produce lists of guidelines for product designers to avoid usability problems early in the development process. However, Nielsen’s 10 original us ability heuristics (Nielsen, 1990) only showed to help users find slightly over 50% of the usabi...
Police, security, and military personnel have—at most—seconds to make a shoot/don't-shoot decision despite the life-or-death consequences of their actions. Recent research suggests that shoot/don't-shoot errors (e.g., commission errors of shooting at nonhostile or unarmed civilians) can be linked to specific cognitive abilities, and these errors co...
The present study explored the usability of a less-lethal launcher from the end-user’s perspective. A within-subjects field experiment (N = 16) tested the FN 303® in a lab condition, enabling optimal firing conditions, and in a high-pressure simulated operational condition (SOC). Results showed that the high-pressure SOC, which was both psychologic...
Despite widespread media coverage of police use-of-force incidents resulting in serious injury or death, there has been relatively little research conducted on how those decisions are made. The current study is a first step toward investigation of deception in shoot/no-shoot situations. We approach this study from the perspective of perceptual–cogn...
This user-centered study compared the usability of old and new models of an inflatable boat during a multi-day high-pressure military exercise. Participants represented the entire population of Special Operations soldiers who were experienced with both models, providing assessments on the effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction of the boat...
Training for non-federal law enforcement agencies is subject to little regulation—training academies and education requirements often vary between departments—resulting in new officers with varying abilities and on-job proficiencies. The role of expertise can be evaluated in law enforcement and assessed to determine best practices for ideal on-job...
Despite the attention garnered in the media about police use of force, there have been relatively few investigations of perceptual–cognitive skill in law enforcement using the naturalistic-decision-making approach. In this paper, we provide an overview of a series of four studies in which we investigated experience-based differences in police offic...
More and more police departments are equipping their officers with body-worn cameras. To maximize the utility of body cams, designers have considered issues such as camera-mounting position, camera-mount stability, methods of activation, and data transfer methods. The human factors/ergonomics community can make important contributions to the design...
The CSSS microworld simulates the task of a closed-circuit television (CCTV) operator responsible for monitoring multiple CCTV feeds in the context of security surveillance. Operators must manage the display of multiple CCTV feeds, monitor the feeds for critical incidents, and then report detected incidents. The microworld can be used for human fac...
In the present paper, expert and novice law enforcement officers performed a handgun shooting task under varied attention-demanding conditions; outcome (i.e. accuracy, consistency) and movement kinematics were measured (i.e. within and between-trial variability (BTV) of forearm and upper arm absolute angle). Using a dual-task paradigm, we directed...
Intelligent video surveillance systems (IVSS) that can track people, identify unattended objects, and recognize activity are constantly being developed, updated, and tested against standard test stimuli. The development of these systems, however, seems to focus on technological advancements and largely ignores how automation will affect the human c...
Researchers interested in performance in complex and dynamic situations have focused on how individuals predict their opponent(s) potential courses of action (i.e., during assessment) and generate potential options about how to respond (i.e., during intervention). When generating predictive options, previous research supports the use of cognitive m...
Despite advances in surveillance technologies, security and command and control (C2) centers still rely strongly on human operators to detect critical events. Human factors—such as cognitive workload and limited attentional capacity—have been shown to affect operators' ability to detect critical incidents. The current standard surveillance environm...
Option-generation paradigms have been employed successfully to investigate skill-based differences in performance, particularly in complex, dynamic, and/or uncertain domains. However, although knowledge of option-generation behavior (e.g., number of options generated, frequency with which the criterion best option is selected) is informative, the u...
Previous research has shown that anticipation is one of the best determinants of skill in numerous complex and dynamic domains, such as law enforcement, driving, aviation, surgery, and sport (for a review see Ward, Williams, & Hancock, 2006). Likewise, recognition ability has formed the cornerstone of much of the naturalistic decision making litera...
Objective: The overarching goal of this study is to perform a human factors assessment of the effects of variations in cockpit weather symbology on General Aviation (GA) pilot symbol perception. Background: To support the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) program, ongoing efforts focus on the implementation and use of weather tech...
Introduction In complex, dynamic environments, successful performance often depends on the ability to make accurate predictions. Skilled prediction includes the ability to anticipate the future state of the current situation prior to acting on it, to predict a personal future position prior to pursuing an intended course of action, as well as to pr...
Perceptual anticipation has often been investigated using a video-based, temporal occlusion paradigm, especially in sport. In this paradigm, the participants’ task is to predict the outcome of the situation based only on the information prior to the occlusion. The occlusion point(s) has typically been based on objective, physically-deterministic ev...
Recently, researchers have focused on how individuals generate different courses of action (i.e., options) on-the-fly, and predict the options to be taken by others. When generating predictive options, previous research supports the use of cognitive mechanisms described by Long Term Working Memory (LTWM) theory (Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995; Ward, Eric...
We review scientific research concerning the effects of high levels of psychological stress on human performance of complex tasks, and relate these to wildland firefighter safety. Findings across studies involving different stressors, participants, and tasks suggest that high levels of stress may compromise individuals’ wildfire safety-related deci...
In many complex and dynamic domains, the ability to generate and then select the appropriate course of action is based on the decision maker's "reading" of the situation--in other words, their ability to assess the situation and predict how it will evolve over the next few seconds. Current theories regarding option generation during the situation a...
Studies of "choking under pressure" suggest novices choke because attention is distracted away from the primary task. In contrast with the traditional research on stress and performance, where additional resources made available with increasing skill can ameliorate the effects of stress, experts are thought to degrade because stress draws attention...
Increasing attentional demands using secondary tasks has detrimental effects on primary psychomotor task performance, especially in novices. However, experts can reduce these effects to maintain their level of performance across task conditions. What is less clear, however, is the effect of increased attentional demand on movement variability acros...
We review the research literature concerning the effects of stress on human performance of complex tasks, and relate these to bushfire survival. The findings from the limited research involving potentially painful, injurious or life-threatening situations indicate that high levels of anxiety may compromise bushfire survival-related decisions and ac...
In recent models of decision-making, cognitive scientists have examined the relationship between option generation and successful performance. These models suggest that those who are successful at decision-making generate few courses of action and typically choose the first, often best, option. Scientists working in the area of expert performance,...
Studies of "choking under pressure" suggest novices choke because attention is distracted away from the primary task. In contrast with the traditional research on stress and performance, where additional resources made available with increasing skill can ameliorate the effects of stress, experts are thought to degrade because stress draws attention...
The aim of this article is to provide an overview of research on expertise and training in complex domains. First, we present a summary of the origins of the research on expertise and the development of current theory in expert performance. Then we present a synopsis of the literature on expert performance in
sport and perceptual-cognitive skills t...
Projects
Projects (5)
We are interested in how police trainees differ from experienced officers in terms of their signal-detection performance of an object identification task, and where those differences—if any—manifest in the temporal sequence.
Planning my dissertation on police use of force and would like input from researchers in the field. I wish to expand upon our knowledge of what leads to mistake of fact shootings. I am looking for ideas from others as to ideas on how to better understand the cues, decision-making, or priming aspects may lead to correct/incorrect decisions. Any suggestions are welcome.
The survey data is intended to inform safety interventions at an organizational level. Unique to this data, rather than simply collecting information about perceptions, this study collected data about paramedic's experiences being assaulted within the last three years.
