"Itchy Brain" the cause of Shooting an Unarmed Bystander

[Jeff White]

http://dailym.ai/1HzEkQF

Researchers have uncovered the processes that can cause a police officer or a soldier to accidentally shoot an innocent bystander.
They say firing a gun is made up of many smaller decisions and movements that require coordination between multiple brain areas.
The study exploring the causes of civilian shooting casualties suggests that mistakes arise from problems with attention - an 'itchy brain,' the authors say - rather than an 'itchy trigger finger.' ...........The findings, published online in Psychological Science, imply that the tendency to squeeze the trigger in error can not only be predicted with cognitive tests but can also be overcome by training in response inhibition.
'Shooting a firearm is a complex activity, and when you couple that action with the conditions encountered by military and law enforcement personnel, firearms training can be even more complicated,' said Adam Biggs, a visiting scholar at Duke's Center for Cognitive Neuroscience.
The sudden decision to not shoot, called 'response inhibition,' is critical when someone innocent comes into the line of fire, researchers say..........In the new study, 88 young adults played a simulated shooting game on Nintendo Wii called 'Reload: Target Down.'
The objective is to shoot armed people as quickly and as accurately as possible, while avoiding unarmed civilians.
After playing, the participants took surveys that assessed their ability to pay attention, signs of motor impulsivity such as finger tapping or restless behaviors, features of autism spectrum disorders and other characteristics.
Individuals also took baseline computerized tests of their ability to withhold responses and to do visual search.

I'd like to see the actual study this article was written from. This sounds like a bunch of horse manure to me. The article doesn't mention anything that simulates stress. I don't really see anything here that says the people conducting the research had a clue about everything involved in a deadly force encounter. The way the article is written is that they figured out a way to train people to play a Wii game better.

If anyone has knowledge of the actual research please post it.

 

[barnbwt]

The term is 'jumpy', or am I missing something? I can't believe people get paid to produce this stuff. Playing Wii for a living, for Pete's sake...No one pulls a trigger because their finger itches, that's just stupid.

 

[JRH6856]

Here is a link to a Feb 2015 Psychological Science news release on line.

Study is supposedly by Adams Briggs at Duke University. So far I can't find an "Adams Briggs" or "Adam Briggs" associated with Duke.

It says the results are to be published in a "forthcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science" I found the article listed in the July 2015 edition:

Link to full text of study. Requires $35 subscription to read.

 

[Jeff White]

Thanks for posting that link. It appears the Daily Mail article was written from that press release.

There has to be more to it then what the article and press release says. With all of the other simulators out there, why did they choose a child's game?

FATS, and other simulators are much more realistic and can even be interactive. Or they could have used role players. I'm going to withhold judgment until I see the study.

I just hate it when the popular media publishes an article like this, it only serves to give people the wrong idea about things.

 

[JRH6856]

WII is not a "child's game". It is an interactive simulator. While it is true that children's games are commonly programmed for it, that is not the only useful purpose it has. While there are other simulators that can be more realistic, perhaps the researchers determined that WII can provide sufficient realism for their study. Probably need to read the full report to get a better understanding of that.

 

[Jeff White]

Reload: Target Down is a child's game. There are too many people (even some in the shooting community) who think that first person shooter games are combat training.

 

[JRH6856]

Reload: Target Down is a child's game. There are too many people (even some in the shooting community) who think that first person shooter games are combat training.

Didn't catch that. I don' t pay a lot of attention to articles about studies so I didn't closely read either the article or the release. I just scanned to find info to get to the full report.

 

[barnbwt]

Hey, I blame umpteen hours of "Duck Hunt" in the mid nineties for my present firearms hobby, thank you very much

Yeah, unless they misreported the tools of the study, I don't see how there could possibly be much use here. Unless of course, they 'discovered' that competition stress can raise adrenaline levels to the point motor skills and response discipline are somewhat degraded.

I wish these academics would just take a freaking Friday off early and go shoot at a range themselves. Doesn't pay nearly as well, I'd wager.

TCB