Paul Suellentrop
Wichita State graduate student Monica Connelly listened to police interviews during her time as an intern and grew curious.
Police are put in stressful situations and asked to make difficult decisions when judging the threat presented by a suspect. Is the law enforcement officer dealing with a person reaching for a cell phone or a gun? A wallet or a knife? Is the suspect鈥檚 movement a tip-off to aggressive behavior or compliance?
鈥淭hat鈥檚 the decision-making they have to do,鈥� Connelly said.
Connelly wanted to know if using human factors research could help law enforcement make better decisions in those situations.
Her curiosity started during her undergraduate internship in the forensic psychology department at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. She came to Wichita State to work on that topic in the Human Factors Ph.D. program under the direction of Joel Suss, assistant professor of psychology.
Specifically, her research involves studying weapon detection by law enforcement officers using biological motion as a cue.
Much of the human factors work in this area, Connelly said, involves sports, such as studying how a soccer goalkeeper might judge an opponent鈥檚 intent for the direction of a kick.
鈥淲e started looking at how we can cognitively assess the decision-making process that law enforcement officers go through when they鈥檙e dealing with a suspect one on one,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ecause there was such little work done in law enforcement, we saw it as a really good opportunity to start taking things down that avenue and also help understand how we should train new officers and new recruits in order to be really good decision-makers.鈥�
She is working with the Wichita State Police Department and the Wichita Police Department in the data collection phase of her research. The data comes from the reactions of more than 80 officers, who will watch 250 videos. She wants to conclude her research by March.
鈥淲e鈥檙e really interested to see if . . . can people tell wallets or a gun,鈥� Suss said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to see if more experienced police officers, or better-trained police officers, can they distinguish between these things? It鈥檚 a really difficult thing (for law enforcement) to do.鈥�
To provide data, law enforcement personnel watch point-light displays on a computer.
鈥淭his focuses people on the underlying biological motion,鈥� Suss said. 鈥淲e show people that. We stop it. Then we ask them 鈥業s it a weapon or a non-weapon?鈥� We鈥檙e trying to work out 鈥楥an people distinguish weapons from non-weapons.鈥欌��
While circumstances such as lighting and weather can vary, and suspects will vary in age, gender and body type, they may share common traits such as arm angle, speed of movement and body posture.
鈥淭he one way that they are more or less all in common is how we are able to move biologically 鈥� my arm can only move in so many directions, things like that,鈥� Connelly said. 鈥淚鈥檓 trying to knock it down to biological motion as a cue to what I might be holding. Do I behave differently or move differently if I鈥檓 holding weapon? Do I unintentionally, maybe, start loading into one foot and take a more aggressive stance?鈥�
For her work, Connelly received an honorable mention for her application for the National Science Foundation's prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship Program.
