The influence of experience upon information-sampling and decision-making behaviour during risk assessment in military personnel

Abstract

We examined the influence of experience upon information-sampling and decision-making behaviour in a group of military personnel as they conducted risk assessments of scenes photographed from patrol routes during the recent conflict in Afghanistan. Their risk assessment was based on an evaluation of Potential Risk Indicators (PRIs) during examination of each scene. We found that both participant groups were equally likely to fixate PRIs, demonstrating similarity in the selectivity of their information-sampling. However, the inexperienced participants made more revisits to PRIs, had longer response times, and were more likely to decide that the scenes contained a high level of risk. Together, these results suggest that experience primarily modulates decision-making behaviour. We discuss potential routes to train personnel to conduct risk assessments in a more similar manner to experienced participants.

Keywords:

• Experience
• Expertise
• Decision-making
• Eye movements

SUMMARY

To summarise, our results demonstrate that experience with risk assessment primarily modulates decision-making behaviour. Overall it is clear that experience with conducting risk assessment for the presence of IEDs enables observers to more rapidly reach decisions, drawing upon their extensive prior experience as they do so. When observers lack experience, much more time is required for them to reach a decision, and, furthermore, they are more likely to respond cautiously, reporting that an area or environment is not safe to proceed into. From a training perspective, it seems important to emphasise the many various forms of PRIs to inexperienced participants, as well as to provide them with experience in detecting safe as well as unsafe environments, along with a library of exemplars of scenes that belong in each of these categories. This should enable them to build up a more fine-grained internal representation of the two different types of environment and, as a result, become more readily able to distinguish threat from non-threat environments and shift their behaviour to be more similar to the experienced participants involved in the present study.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by funding from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. Content includes material subject to Dstl © Crown copyright (2015). Licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: [email protected].