Asymmetric Attention: Visualizing the Uncertain Threat

Abstract

This report attempts to fuse Army needs, specific to threat detection, with available evidence from academia and military sources. The report provides viable routes for short-term enhancement of threat detection training and long-term goals of a research program dedicated to improving the Army's understanding of threat detection. This review found two major avenues of research, visual attention and visual memory that would benefit research and understanding of attention and threat detection for current and future operational environments. Based on the review, at least three sequential skills are discussed as necessary for understanding and improving threat detection: attentiveness, recognition, and action. These skills orient and guide the Soldier in operational settings from the basic perceptual process at the attentiveness stage up through higher-order reasoning at the action stage. Training formats are explored including still images and high-fidelity simulations, all of which could be scaffolded upon a deliberate practice framework.

The Importance of Cognitive Factors that Guide Escalation of Force Decisions

“…However, for EOF situations there may be a need to rapidly change from a preventative posture to a reactive posture, which are not aided by frequent changes to SROE. In some instances of threat detection, the situation is static or the visual scene is not complex and involves the recognition of a change against a mostly non-changing visual background (see Vowels 2010). However, many EOF situations are dynamic or the situation requires the Soldier to detect important cues or changes in a visual scene that is also changing (and sometimes, very quickly).…”

“…The two primary information acquisition pathways important for visual threat detection are visual attention and visual memory. These are explained more thoroughly in Vowels (2010) and are only briefly reviewed here in terms of how they are affected by the cognitive factors noted above. These pathways can inform Soldiers and assist them in better understanding their visual environment concerning potential EOF situations.…”

“…Foldes et al, (2010) reference a number of biases that can affect information acquisition and use. Further, the skills (Attentiveness, Recognition, and Action) proposed in Vowels (2010) as requisite for visual threat detection are not discussed here. The model presented in this report is a cognitive framework and not a skill acquisition model.…”

“…Though none of the theories noted previously are necessarily a standalone framework, pieces of each could be used to further explore the characteristics important to EOF behavior. The following discussion is a brief examination of a few theoretical considerations that would provide further useful information about visual threat detection and EOF, in addition to those provided for threat detection in Vowels (2010). The three theories reviewed here serve as broad frameworks for better understanding the six cognitive factors (and potential others) in EOF situations.…”

The effects of experience and uncertainty on hypothesis generation and testing in threat assessment

“…Military and public safety practitioners' ability to detect threats in an operational environment (OE) is critical to protecting lives and maintaining safe communities. Problems arise, however, when dynamic and varied threats render an OE highly uncertain and difficult to assess (U.S. Department of Army, 2014; Vowels, 2010). Further aggravating the effects of environmental uncertainty, soldiers, and public safety practitioners, like all decision makers, are susceptible to biases and misperceptions that can lead to faulty judgment and decision‐making (e.g., Taleb, 2007).…”