Police officers’ actual vs. recalled path of travel in response to a threatening traffic stop scenario

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to measure the amount of error incurred by police officers when trying to accurately draw a previously completed movement path, which occurred during their response to a high-stress encounter. Secondary purposes of the study examined whether gridlines on a diagram or a distractor situation would influence memory accuracy. Officers (n = 23) were taken through a high-stress stimulus phase, followed by a memory recall phase where they were required to accurately draw their path of travel. Average distance traveled was 5.15 ± 1.98 m. Average discrepancy for all participants was an area of 3.23 ± 4.13 m² and length of 1.43 ± 1.30 m. Significant length differences were found between actual and recalled paths of travel (p < .01). No other significant area or length differences were found.

Keywords:

• episodic memory
• police officers
• movement path
• memory
• memory error

Acknowledgments

We would like to give our great appreciation to Scott Buhrmaster, who served as the confederate driver for the study, to Patricia Thiem and Dawn Seefeldt for coordination of and directing participants through the study, to Dr. Alexis Artwohl for her expertise and the debriefing of participants, and to Sergeant Craig Allen, the Hillsboro Police Department Force Tactics Team, and the Hillsboro Police Department for their efforts in coordinating the study and the recruitment of officers to serve as participants. We would also like to thank Joel Suss for his help in the writing process of this article.