Gaze Control and Training for High-Stress Situations in Law Enforcement: a Systematic Review
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Gaze Control and Training for High-Stress Situations in Law Enforcement: a Systematic Review Benedikt Heusler 1
&
Christine Sutter 1
# Society for Police and Criminal Psychology 2019
Abstract In the core review of the current paper, seven studies were analysed to identify the correlation between gaze control, training and anxiety in high-stress law enforcement situations. Additional findings from adjacent studies were included in the final summary after assessing their applicability. The body of research so far indicates that there are significant differences in the way highly trained law enforcement personnel control their gaze compared to non-trained individuals and novices. Experience and domainspecific knowledge improve visual perception skills and overall performance under pressure. Training in reality-based scenarios and quiet eye training seems to have the most beneficial effects on gaze control and decision-making in high-stress situations. For future research, the authors recommend assessing how training and practical experience correlate in law enforcement and whether quiet eye training might provide a shortcut for law enforcement training. Keywords Law enforcement . Police . Gaze . Anxiety . Training
Introduction
Visual Perception, Attention and Tool Use
Law enforcement officers strongly rely on their ability to detect potential threats in their day-to-day work, even in seemingly harmless situations. A key factor for recognising weapons and dangerous objects in split seconds is the ability to control gaze and attention under pressure (Helsen and Starkes 1999; Vickers and Lewinski 2012). Although gaze control is a relatively young field of research, perceptual psychologists and sport scientists have shown interest in eye tracking and its practical applications for years. Within the area of law enforcement, however, the body of research is still somewhat limited and therefore offers much potential to discover thus far unknown aspects of police work. With studies from adjacent fields not necessarily being fully applicable to police work and studies from a military perspective being surprisingly scarce, ascertaining the current state of scientific knowledge on gaze control in law enforcement might be more challenging than one might expect.
With more than one-third of the human brain being devoted to visual perception, seeing is unarguably the primary sense when it comes to detecting external stimuli and using tools (Findlay and Gilchrist 2003; Sutter et al. 2013). According to a study conducted by Alt and Darken (2008), soldiers, who were asked about their experiences post-battle, reported that in daytime conditions, every detected threat was first perceived visually. Even in nighttime conditions, it was still almost half of the detected threats (44%) that were identified through seeing. Groner and Groner (1989) state that the dominance of the visual sense affects human information processing bottom-up (e.g. retrieving visual information from the environment in general) as well as top-down (e.g. inte
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