Scientists study police officer's brainwaves for gun suitability

(18 Apr 2019) LEADIN: Scientists are studying the brain waves of trained firearms officers to work out how they respond in life and death situations. They're using virtual reality to put officers through a number of different scenarios. STORYLINE: These are seasoned police officers, specially trained to use firearms. Every year officers across the UK return to tactical training units like this one to ensure that police who bear guns can respond to dangerous situations calmly and safely. Storming a building, or on the lookout for a sniper, the officers fall into their default response. How to behave with armed suspects has drilled into these police teams in hour upon hour of training. Their response is almost automatic. Police officers undergo an initial thirteen weeks firearms training here, learning not just how to shoot a weapon, but all the tactics involved with firearms training. Now a pilot study is underway to see if scientists can identify differences in the brain activity of these experienced firearms officers, and people who have no training. Former police inspector Shaun Beebe is now working with scientists at Nottingham University's School of Physics and Astronomy. He says: "So we're working with the Durham and Cleveland police forces and we're taking some training scenarios into virtual reality and then using a technique to measure signals from the brain to try and unpick what those officers are doing in terms of the neurology the neuroscience of our decision making at these critical times." The researchers have created a virtual reality situation where police officers are confronted with an avatar which appears from around a brick wall. Randomly the avatar may be armed with a knife, a gun, or they may be completely unarmed. The officer taking part in the experiment has to decide whether it is right to deploy a gun, or shock the suspect with an electric taser gun. Over fifty minutes the officer in the experiment will face 120 snap decisions on whether to use his gun. During the evaluation they wear an EEG (electroencephalogram) cap which measures and records their brain activity. At the end of the session researchers can look at the EEG recording and see how an officer responded to a specific situation. The lead researcher is Klaus Kessler Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Aston University. He says: "We would like to improve police training. We would like to support the police in improving their training and helping them understand how decisions are being made by the police officers in stressful situations. On the other hand we want to understand the basic science as well, of complex decision making because so far all the science has been conducted in laboratory experiments. It's not very realistic. So for the first time over the past few years science has had the opportunity to use virtual reality to understand complex decision making." Understanding the complex decision making that's going on here is not a easy task. The scientists are looking at theta brainwaves. Kessler and his team are at the very start of a long process, but they hope that in the future they will be able to identify people who have the best responses to risky jobs. "So with the police we're doing it in very confrontational, very stressful scenarios, to shoot, or not to shoot. To use lethal force or not. But it can be extended to other scenarios like driving for instance, or also to airlines piloting," says Kessler. Here officers are in a scenario where an armed suspect has taken a bus. The software for the pilot study was designed by Nick Alexander from Aston University. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...