How unintentional cues can bias threat assessments during shoot/don't-shoot simulations

Contextual cueing during lethal force training: How target design and repetition can alter threat assessments

Lethal force training requires individuals to make threat assessments, which involves holistic scenario processing to identify potential threats. Photorealistic targets can make threat/non-threat judgments substantially more genuine and challenging compared to simple cardboard or silhouette targets. Unfortunately, repeated target use also brings unintended consequences that could invalidate threat assessment processes conducted during training. Contextually rich or unique targets could be implicitly memorable in a way that allows observers to recall weapon locations rather than forcing observers to conduct a naturalistic assessment. Experiment 1 demonstrated robust contextual cueing effects in a well-established shoot/don't-shoot stimulus set, and Experiment 2 extended this finding from complex scene stimuli to simple actor-only stimuli. Experiment 3 demonstrated that these effects also occurred among trained professionals using rifles rather than computer-based tasks. Taken together, these findings demonstrate the potential for uncontrolled target repetition to alter the fundamental processes of threat assessment during lethal force training.

Cue utilisation is partially related to performance on an urban operations course but not experience

INTRODUCTION

Decision making in use of force relies on accurate cue identification to inform appropriate response. This research was designed to test the relationship between cue utilisation and performance prior to, and following participation in an urban operations course (UOC).

METHODS

A total of 37 participants were assessed on cue utilisation measures, course outcome and between group changes following course participation.

RESULTS

A significant main effect was evident for Cue utilisation and administration, (p = 0.005), but not training group, (p = 0.54), nor between groups and point of administration, (p = 0.410). No main effect was evident between groups and training outcome, (p = 0.11). However, there was a main effect for point of administration, (p = 0.02) and training outcome and point of administration (p = 0.02).

CONCLUSION

Although cue utilisation is an essential component of perception-action tasks, cues may be more specific to the relevant training environment with limited transfer to the operational context.

Building a transdisciplinary expert consensus on the cognitive drivers of performance under pressure: An international multi-panel Delphi study

Introduction

The ability to perform optimally under pressure is critical across many occupations, including the military, first responders, and competitive sport. Despite recognition that such performance depends on a range of cognitive factors, how common these factors are across performance domains remains unclear. The current study sought to integrate existing knowledge in the performance field in the form of a transdisciplinary expert consensus on the cognitive mechanisms that underlie performance under pressure.

Methods

International experts were recruited from four performance domains [(i) Defense; (ii) Competitive Sport; (iii) Civilian High-stakes; and (iv) Performance Neuroscience]. Experts rated constructs from the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework (and several expert-suggested constructs) across successive rounds, until all constructs reached consensus for inclusion or were eliminated. Finally, included constructs were ranked for their relative importance.

Results

Sixty-eight experts completed the first Delphi round, with 94% of experts retained by the end of the Delphi process. The following 10 constructs reached consensus across all four panels (in order of overall ranking): (1) Attention; (2) Cognitive Control-Performance Monitoring; (3) Arousal and Regulatory Systems-Arousal; (4) Cognitive Control-Goal Selection, Updating, Representation, and Maintenance; (5) Cognitive Control-Response Selection and Inhibition/Suppression; (6) Working memory-Flexible Updating; (7) Working memory-Active Maintenance; (8) Perception and Understanding of Self-Self-knowledge; (9) Working memory-Interference Control, and (10) Expert-suggested-Shifting.

Discussion

Our results identify a set of transdisciplinary neuroscience-informed constructs, validated through expert consensus. This expert consensus is critical to standardizing cognitive assessment and informing mechanism-targeted interventions in the broader field of human performance optimization.

Perception Over Personality in Lethal Force: Aggression, Impulsivity, and Big Five Traits in Threat Assessments and Behavioral Responses due to Weapon Presence and Posture

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 explored as to how they might affect either threat perception or behavioral responses in a lethal force decision. The current investigation examined multiple personality traits with the potential to influence lethal force decision making, including aggression, impulsivity, and the Big Five traits. These measures were compared to threat perception and behavioral responses made to a variety of lethal force stimuli broadly categorized as clear threats, ambiguous threats, and clear nonthreats. Samples were recruited from combat-trained infantry, military recruits, and the civilian community to control for prior lethal force training. Although there was a strong omnibus relationship between threat perception and the likelihood of a behavioral response, neither military training nor personality differences had any impact on threat perception or a binary (e.g., shoot/don't-shoot) behavioral response. Therefore, we conclude that perception dominates personality in lethal force decision making when the threat assessment decision is limited to factors such as weapon presence or posture rather than emotion.

The role of inhibitory control in shoot/don't-shoot decisions

Previous work has demonstrated a link between cognitive abilities, specifically inhibitory control and lethal force decision-making performance. However, many previously used approaches to simulating shoot/don't shoot scenarios have lacked ecological validity. There is a need to investigate how inhibitory control impacts shoot/don't decisions using realistic simulations to better translate the findings to military and law enforcement settings. This study used multiple cognitive control tasks incorporating discrete judgements in go/no-go and stop signal tasks as well as subjective judgements in go/no-go tasks with both colour stimuli and emotional faces. These combined tasks provided a comprehensive evaluation of inhibitory control abilities. To ensure ecological validity in shooting performance, existing military training scenarios incorporated realistic weaponry and aiming behaviours across different shoot/don't-shoot simulations. The inhibitory control battery identified five principal components from the various tasks, including: stopping ability, response speed, emotion detection, colour detection, and emotional biases. These principal inhibitory control components were entered into hierarchical linear regressions with the dependent variables of unintended casualties inflicted and lethal rounds fired, respectively. Stopping ability better predicted the likelihood of inflicting an unintended casualty, whereas response speed better predicted the number of lethal rounds fired. These regression models included baseline metrics of marksmanship and shots fired, which supports a role for inhibitory control above and beyond basic shooting abilities or strategy. These collective findings provide mechanistic support for the relationship between inhibitory control and errors in shoot/don't-shoot decision-making while using realistic military training scenarios.