Oscillatory neural correlates of police firearms decision making in virtual reality

Abstract

We investigated the neural signatures of expert decision-making in the context of police training in a virtual reality-based shoot/don't shoot scenario. Police officers can use stopping force against a perpetrator, which may require using a firearm and each decision made by an officer to discharge their firearm or not has substantial implications. Therefore, it is important to understand the cognitive and underlying neurophysiological processes that lead to such a decision. We used virtual reality-based simulations to elicit ecologically valid behavior from authorized firearms officers (AFOs) in the UK and matched novices in a shoot/don't shoot task and recorded electroencephalography concurrently. We found that AFOs had consistently faster response times than novices, suggesting our task was sensitive to their expertise. To investigate differences in decision-making processes under varying levels of threat and expertise, we analyzed electrophysiological signals originating from the anterior cingulate cortex. In line with similar response inhibition tasks, we found greater increases in preresponse theta power when participants inhibited the response to shoot when under no threat as compared with shooting. Most importantly, we showed that when preparing against threat, theta power increase was greater for experts than novices, suggesting that differences in performance between experts and novices are due to their greater orientation toward threat. Additionally, shorter beta rebounds suggest that experts were "ready for action" sooner. More generally, we demonstrate that the investigation of expert decision-making should incorporate naturalistic stimuli and an appropriate control group to enhance validity.