Improving Visual Threat Detection: Research to Validate the Threat Detection Skills Trainer.

摘要

The purpose of this research was to validate a threat detection skills trainer developed in previous research (Zimmerman, Mueller, Daniels, & Vowels, 2012; Zimmerman, Mueller, Grover, & Vowels, in preparation). The trainer consists of exercises intended to improve visual threat detection, including dynamic threat monitoring, threat prioritization, and causal reasoning (Zimmerman et al., 2012). The current research utilized four tasks to measure the impact of the skills trainer: time and resource limited threat search; dynamic change detection; situation awareness at the perception and comprehension levels; and, scenario-based causal reasoning. Findings did not provide evidence that the trainer alone is a viable option for training visual threat detection, likely due to low statistical power and practice effects. However, all participants showed improvement on all dependent variables from pre-test to post-test, suggesting that acute, cognitive training could enhance the skills required for effective threat detection. Future research should tease apart the effects of practice and the effects of training via the threat detection skills trainer. Additional future experiments should test threat detection in live and simulated scenarios to increase ecological validity. Longitudinal research would determine if practice and training on visual threat detection have long-term effects.