Expertise Modulates Visual Sampling Strategies in Authorised Firearms Police Officers

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Publication date
2025-07-31
Creators
Sudkamp, Jennifer
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Description
High-risk incidents require responders to rapidly detect, sample, and interpret critical visual information. To understand how experience shapes these abilities, we used mobile eye-tracking to examine expertise-related differences in gaze behaviour of Authorised Firearms Officers during simulated tactical scenarios. Receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed that the number, duration, and horizontal spread of fixations moderately discriminated between expert and novice officers, with experts tending to perform more, but shorter fixations that were distributed more broadly. Experts also exhibited greater consistency in gaze location even when suspects were hidden from sight, suggesting they shared expectations about where threats may emerge. In the moments leading up to operational responses, experts increased their fixation durations, indicating more deliberate visual preparation. We also evaluated which visual features best explained fixation locations. A model combining low-level saliency with a focus on suspects’ waistlines provided the most accurate account of officers’ gaze patterns.
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Subjects
  • Visual perception
  • Eye tracking
  • Gaze
  • Surveillance detection
  • motion capture, eye movements, visual expertise, threat detection, visual saliency
  • Biological Sciences::Psychology::Cognitive & affective psychology::Psychology of perception
  • B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion::BF Psychology
Divisions
  • University of Nottingham, UK Campus::Faculty of Science::School of Psychology
Deposit date
2025-07-31
Data type
Eye-tracker and motion capture recordings (raw data files)
Contributors
  • Roach, Neil
  • McGraw, Paul
  • Beebe, Shaun
  • Metcalf, Jessica
Funders
  • Other
  • EPSRC IAA
Data collection method
Participants’ gaze position was recorded at a sampling rate of 50 Hz using a Tobii Glasses 2 head-mounted eye-tracker (Tobii AB, Danderyd, Sweden). We added a magnetic motion sensor (G4 wireless motion tracker, Polhemus Inc., Colchester, Vermont, USA) to the frame of the eye-tracking glasses to also monitor head movements and participants’ relative position in the room.
Resource languages
  • en
Publisher
University of Nottingham
CC-BY
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Creative Commons by Attribution