CALGARY — In life-or-death situations, police officers usually only have a matter of seconds before determining whether their target is brandishing a weapon and whether to pull the trigger to subdue the assailant.
That split-second decision-making could be aided by Quiet Eye training, according to a study published Tuesday by University of Calgary kinesiology professor Joan Vickers and Minnesota police psychology expert Bill Lewinski. “Quiet Eye is the last thing you see before you have to make a critical movement,” said Vickers, who pioneered Quiet Eye training and introduced it in sports, medicine and now law enforcement. “In this police study, it was what your eye was stable on for at least 100 milliseconds before you pulled the trigger.” In the study — conducted in 2008 in an unnamed foreign city haunted by street violence and terrorist attacks — 11 experienced elite officers and 13 rookie officers with six months of training were tested. Each wore a mobile eye device, which looks like a pair of safety goggles outfitted with two cameras, one that reflects what the eye is looking at and one that films what the scene facing the officer. The officers were then placed in realistic officer-assailant scenarios, in which they had mere moments to determine whether the perpetrator has holding a cellphone or a weapon, and whether to open fire.
