Human Factors Discourse On Law Enforcement Psychobehaviors: Ethology To High Velocity Human Factors

A Discourse on Law Enforcement
Psychobehaviors
INFORMING DESIGN FROM DISPLAYS IN
ETHOLOGY TO HIGH VELOCITY HUMAN FACTORS
MOIN RAHMAN
Design Integration-Human Factors
(Contact: moin.rahman@motorola.com)
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Cover Art
High Velocity Human Factors

First Quadrant (top right corner): High speed police pursuit ~ 80 mph
Fourth Quad (bottom right): “Cat shot” (catapulting) of an F/A-18 Hornet off a naval carrier; accelerating
from 0 to 180 mph in 3 sec.
Displays from Ethology

Second Quad (top left): Signature display – “strutting” police officers on foot patrol neutralizing potential
law breakers through their “presence.”
Third Quad (bottom left): Signature & challenge display – “strutting” lizards issuing warning to intruders
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Psychobehaviors
(Design Human Factors-Knowledge Field Manual-1)
MOIN RAHMAN
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This discourse is dedicated to the memory of Col. John Boyd (a.k.a., Genghis
John) who not only worked at high velocities when flying [F-86] combat missions
at Mach speeds over the skies of Korea, but also informed and inspired my own
thinking and that of the US Air Force and the Marine Corps with his writings on
human performance in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous domains and
terrains.
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Design Human Factors Discourse on Law Enforcement
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CONTENTS
Foreword ........................................................................................................................................ ix
Preface............................................................................................................................................ xi
1.0 Preamble ............................................................................................................................. 1
2.0 Prologue .............................................................................................................................. 3
2.1 Signature Displays .......................................................................................................... 5
2.2 Challenge Displays ......................................................................................................... 5
2.2.1 Cultural Aspects: Social, Physical and Visual........................................................ 7
2.2.2 Fight or Flight? ....................................................................................................... 8
2.3 Appeasement Displays.................................................................................................... 9
2.4 Bonding Displays............................................................................................................ 9
3.0 Dialogue............................................................................................................................ 11
3.1 Performance Factors: calm, alert, vigilant, restrained or aroused?............................... 11
3.2 Psychological Processes................................................................................................ 12
3.2.1 Sensory-Perceptual Systems ................................................................................. 12
3.2.2 Attention ............................................................................................................... 13
3.2.3 Decision and Action.............................................................................................. 15
3.2.4 X-treme Arousal.................................................................................................... 16
4.0 Thought-log: Theory to Practice....................................................................................... 21
4.1 The Language of Design............................................................................................... 21
4.2 Sensory-Perceptuals...................................................................................................... 22
4.2.1 Tunneling .............................................................................................................. 22
4.2.2 Design Deliberations on Sensory-Perceptuals ...................................................... 22
4.2.3 Reflexive Reactions .............................................................................................. 25
4.3 Orientation Solutions .................................................................................................... 26
4.3.1 Time ...................................................................................................................... 27
4.3.2 Pattern Recognition............................................................................................... 27
4.3.3 Mission Space Awareness (MSA) ........................................................................ 29
4.4 Decision-Making........................................................................................................... 32
4.4.1 The Laws of High Velocity Human Factors (HVHF) .......................................... 34
4.5 Action............................................................................................................................ 40
4.6 OODA: Summarized..................................................................................................... 42
5.0 Epilogue ............................................................................................................................ 43
6.0 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 45
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Foreword
By Mark Palmer
Good product design and development can happen through luck, intelligence, or any mix of the
two. The more intelligence and insight a team has about the way customers live, work and play
the less they risk being wrong, or erroneous, in their design decisions.
Moin Rahman has done a deep dive into diverse sources of information about humans, in
general, and police and military in specific; to gain insights into “why” people behave they way
they do, and propose a process and criterion to create products that enhance users’ experience
without blocking their motivations. He has drawn insights from such diverse areas as Animal
Ethology, Cognitive and Biological Sciences, Military Psychology, and Human Factors, among
others.
Behavioral insights are not enough to inform the design process. It takes interpretation of those
insights to make a real and meaningful difference. Moin has proposed a process of how these,
and future insights, should be translated to affect new designs. For example, by looking at
reptilian social behaviors he postulates a design language for Police, as implausible as it sounds;
it’s quite compelling in its reason.
The field of Human Factors Psychology has focused attention on creating systems that could
adapt to various types of users. However, little attention has been given to systems that could
adapt to changing capabilities of a single user affected by different environmental stressors. High
stress dramatically affects how a person processes information. Moin looks at those
environmental stressors and the resulting changes in capabilities and proposes design criteria for
addressing them. He calls his approach High Velocity Human Factors (HVHF) and has
proposed seven laws. This approach will serve as a fruitful source of new ideas and as a good
filter to access any new concepts for police and others users in high velocity situations.
This body of work represents a beginning, not an ending. It’s an approach to product
development that will inspire ideas that really do make a difference to users, and at the same time
should reduce risk of creating products that either do not fit with our customers work processes,
or even worse, interfere with their goals and motivations.
Moin’s unique approach to understanding users will ensure a long and prosperous relationship
with Motorola customers by creating a product development roadmap with a real destination.
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Preface
The social historian and futurist Alvin Toffler observed that innovation is the outcome of
nonaverage thinking arising under nonequilibrium conditions. Design Integration (DI), the
group that I’m part of, has a rich vein of innovation because its people exhibit nonaverage
thinking very much in the Tofflerian tradition. The nonaverage thinking of my fellow travelers
(DI mates) is triggered because they never take satisfaction in people, things or a world, which
falsely concludes that it is in equilibrium. For the DI-ites, there is always room to improve and
new castles to be dreamt off.
The people of DI, particularly its designers, are in a relentless quest for fresh insights and
practice nonlinear thinking in search of the next paradigm shift. Thus the HF specialist in team-
DI – like myself -- is constantly provoked, probed and prodded by the designers to provide new
knowledge and scientific precepts on human behavior that fuel innovation, from the edge of the
possible. This poses both a challenge and an invitation to the human factors specialist in team-
DI.
This discourse is the end result of my acceptance to this invitation and being willing to make a
game of such a challenge. But as always a visionary is required to articulate the needs of DI in
the language of the sciences and describe the nucleus and frontiers of the problem on hand. This
visionary is none other than Mark Palmer (Senior Manager, Human Factors) who is really ahead
of our times because he knows, in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words “A foolish consistency is the
hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” Simply put,
it is not enough to be contended with smidgens of innovation that may occur as accidental and
incidental byproducts of routine work – but it is necessary to audaciously step out of the routine
and invest in people, time and unconventional thinking to unearth new vistas of innovation
where none existed before. And Mark, a maverick leader, revels in doing just that.
Time and again, Mark has always succeeded in jolting me into action – much like the F/A-18
Hornet that is catapulted off a navy carrier’s deck – because of the exciting problems he lobs at
me. They so seduce my intellect that they consume me lock, stock and barrel: I find myself
researching and reflecting the issues nonstop and reconnoitering for knowledge in almost every
known science to man. Gracias Mark!
If there is a paragon of technology who has not fallen afoul to its paradoxes, it is my colleague,
Tim Bergin. I have immensely benefited from his challenges, critiques and comments throughout
this research. I learnt a great deal from him on the limitations of technology and the
limitlessness of human ingenuity. Tim was a willing sparring partner who shaped my thinking in
the course of discussing a gamut of technologies over many hours: police car cockpits;
sidewinder air-intercept-missiles; fly-by-wire technologies of the F-16 (fighting Falcon); and the
virtues & vicissitudes of [human & machine] speed, stealth and surprise as practiced by SWAT
teams, the B-2 bomber, and maneuver warfare. IOU Tim!
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My ideas usually emerge as a dense thundercloud. When I express them on paper they can
become both garrulous and garbled. This work would not have got its clarity of purpose without
the superb editing of Narcy Ascuntar. Many thanks Narcy for your skilful pruning of this work.
Finally thanks to Shantel de Mare for helping me articulate my ideas – particularly, the graphic
pertaining to the OODA loop (high velocity cycles) – through the visual-graphic medium.
The intent of this discourse was never to provide checklists, formulas or recipes – i.e., cliché
ergonomic & pre-engineered solutions on a piecemeal basis (e.g., “make the knobs bigger but
keep the footprint smaller”) – but to encourage and engage in creativity at the level of creating
the next paradigm shift. And creativity itself, as one knows, involves cross disciplinary thinking
where the framework of one field might be used to think afresh of another. Thus the reader
should not be surprised if analogies from the ethology of lizards to jet fighters taking-off from
naval carriers are used to illustrate broad concepts – and to feed the mind that doesn’t wish to be
ensnared by the tedium offered by a world in equilibrium.
Moin Rahman
January 2007
(contact: moin.rahman@motorola.com)
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Psychobehaviors
(Design Human Factors-Knowledge Field Manual-1)
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1.0 Preamble
The purpose of technology is to equip the man. We must not fall prey to the mistaken notion
technology can reduce warfare to simply manning the equipment.
- Joint Chiefs of Staff [1]
Mission
To build a human factors platform by specifically addressing human behaviors, predilections and
performance, in the context of law enforcement. With a focus on those instances when the
human agent has to perform in an environment where the stakes are high, physical danger is
imminent, and the future is unpredictable and the information is incomplete (a.k.a., fog and
friction).
Intent
Utilize the human factors platform to stimulate strategic design thinking towards solutions that
would best aid and abet the human agent in accomplishing his mission in the field.
This human factors platform takes its sustenance from psychobehavioral theories and practice
concerning human behavior, particularly when operating under stressors – induced by volatile
and ambiguous factors beyond one’s control – that are experienced during law enforcement
activities. This discourse paints the psychobehavioral portrait – as it may apply to the law
enforcement officer – in four parts:
a. Prologue: Ethological antecedents: territoriality, patrol behaviors and law enforcement

b. Dialogue: Discussion on psychobehaviors and their design implications
c. Thought-log: Spurring creative design through cross disciplinary and non-linear thinking
d. Epilogue: When psychobehaviors inform design – design will have no cul de sac.
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2.0 Prologue
[the] fundamental duty of the police is to protect human life and that officers are only justified
taking a life as a last resort.
- Joseph D. McNamara NYPD deputy inspector (ret.) and former police chief of Kansas City,
Mo., and San Jose, CA. [2]
Police cars don’t enforce the law nor do police radios. The police officer exercises his physical,
moral and social authority, in conjunction with tactical and technical superiority to uphold and
enforce the law. The police car, the radio and other technologies are merely proximal tools,
which become essential or critical depending on the officer’s needs of the moment. And these
proximal tools by their appearance, [inter]actions, and dispositions aid the police officer in
attaining and upholding his physical, moral and social authority.
- Author
The philosopher Thomas Hobbes pointed out that the primary bond which holds society together
is the promise of security [33]. In a democratic setting, an individual makes a social contract
with the sovereign to abide by the generally agreed upon laws and by default expects that
everybody else, including the power wielding elected representatives and their instruments, to do
the same. Thus society as a whole becomes dependent on the government to uphold and enforce
the law. In this context law enforcement responsibilities are farmed out to a third party such as
the police department and the judicial system.
The law enforcement agency is charged and challenged with the role of playing a morally
responsible, authoritative and impartial role when discharging its responsibilities. A successful
law enforcement agency takes it upon itself to conduct itself in a manner, which wins the respect
and cooperation from society at large and to obtain the desired resources from the government.
The latter is facilitated by a society (tax payers) that feels justified in investing in the law
enforcement agencies. Understandings of the sociopolitical underpinnings of law enforcement
are essential before one embarks on designing systems and solutions for the officer or the
organization enforcing the law.
Law enforcement is a complex human endeavor as its goals are manifold and requires that the
officer acquire and exercise a gamut of skills1 in multiple settings (listed below) to accomplish
them. For starters, the modern police officer is “mission saturated,”2 which, in turn, places heavy
demands both on his body and mind. The manifold [typical] goals inherent to the law
enforcement domain (some examples) are listed below:
1. Exert control to dissuade and quell chaos (equilibrium over entropy, order rather than
disorder)
a. Crowd management, civil order & riot control
1
Legal framework, mastering technology (radio, car, computer, radar gun, etc.) and exercising technical superiority,
inter-personal skills (handling friendly and adversarial elements), among others.
2
Encumbered with a number of responsibilities – resulting in mission saturation – from field work (e.g.,
apprehending law breakers) to paper work (e.g., writing accident reports, issuing parking tickets, etc.).
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b. Incapacitate hostage takers and free hostages
c. Adherence to traffic laws
2. Eliminate hazards, provide aid and assist in recovery
a. Clear traffic lanes and mitigate hazards due to disabled vehicles
b. Traffic management and mitigating related impediments (non-working traffic
lights, road blocks due to debris, etc.)
c. Provide medical aid to injured citizens, rescue trapped citizens, etc.
3. Maintenance of order
a. Homeostasis3 in civil order: living with the acceptable norms a society sets
through its legal and cultural framework
b. Discouraging crime through “presence patrol”
c. Apprehending law breakers and delivering justice by partnering with the legal
systems – which, in turn, discourages repeat crimes.
To expand on #1 (exert control to dissuade and quell chaos), the officer has the extra burden of
subjugating the target [breaking the law] with the use of little or no force. Use of force is usually
– and not necessarily the best – resort in law enforcement doctrine and practice. Furthermore, a
police officer’s every action – or inaction – is under constant scrutiny by legal, civil, social, and
political, including criminal, elements in society. In other words, they function in the court of
public opinion at all times. Unlike warfare, law enforcement, restricts an officer’s actions and
encumbers that the officer be constantly cognizant of what he does and doesn’t do. For
example, in the heat of action – exchanging fire with a fugitive – a police officer should
remember the police rules, which mandates that an officer pause after firing three rounds to
assess the situation. This example illustrates the cognitive demands – “remember and recall”
despite extraneous stressors – placed on the officer due to doctrine and legal requirements.
The law enforcement officer seeks to prevail in the field, first and foremost, with the strength of
his will – that is, by exercising a superior [both perceived and real] physical, psychological,
moral, social and technological authority over his adversary. This also means that a democratic
society – as opposed to a police state – hires and accepts the law enforcement officer as an
incorruptible authority who will uphold the law and protect life, limb and property.
The above has been described to make the reader better understand the political, social and moral
underpinnings of law enforcement before one proceeds to the anthropological and human factors
substrates of law enforcement.
To best understand the goals, beliefs, intents and behaviors of a modern police officer one should
begin with the antecedents of all behavior: they are the prosematic4 behaviors [3,4] exhibited by
all complex organisms, including humans. The four prosematic behaviors listed below appear to
provide the foundation of almost all human-human [officer-citizen] interactions that might occur
when an officer is on his or her beat.
3
The term homeostasis, borrowed from physiology, is used as a metaphor to imply that values of critical variables
can’t fluctuate beyond a safe range. That means body temperature, blood pressure, pulse rate, PH value, etc., need
to fall within certain ranges to sustain life.
4
Prosematic behaviors are nothing but rudimentary behaviors that provide a master routine for an organism’s daily
behavior in its ecology [3,4].
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1) Signature Displays (self assertion)
2) Challenge (territorial) displays
3) Appeasement (submissive) displays
4) Bonding (camaraderie) displays
A brief discussions of the prosematic behaviors are being listed in order to understand the
anthropological underpinnings of police work. This will help us clarify the underlying
motivations that may energize and drive the officer to accomplish his job successfully.
As an aside, it should be noted that these prosematic behaviors are largely governed by the
primitive structures of the brain (R-complex or the reptilian cortex) as opposed to the more
sophisticated neo cortex which largely provides the cognitive horse power for complex
interactions. Simply put the R-complex drives behaviors that are automatic, effortless and rapid.
The neo cortex drives behaviors that require deliberate and conscious effort, which is usually the
case when interacting with technologies or higher order problem solving. One needs to
acknowledge this gulf to appreciate the two levels – or brain layers – at which the police officers
are likely to operate when they perform tasks ranging from shoot-outs (e.g., lower level reptilian
reactions to sustain self preservation) to issuing parking violation tickets (higher level neo-
mammalian actions to drive human-system interactions).
2.1 Signature Displays

Signature displays are assertion displays, which convey that “I’m the boss.”
As a law enforcement professional the officer’s demeanor is that of an authority figure. The
sense of authority can be conveyed through multiple channels. One among them is visual
authority: power emanating from one’s physique (exaggeration of body size through uniform and
gear), polished and primed equipment, and authoritative body language, among others. The other
main channel is verbal authority: prosody and tonal quality of voice, choice of words, a powerful
sounding and crackling radio, etc.
2.2 Challenge Displays

Challenge displays are territorial in nature, which serve to keep intruders out, by issuing a
challenge in the form of “take-notice” of me. This would be the core action-related display with
regard to a police officer when enforcing the law (e.g., firing a weapon in the air, use of teargas
and other psych-ops methods). The passive version of the challenge display takes on the form of
a “presence patrol” (a.k.a., boots or wheels on the ground) to send a clear message to law
breakers and to foster a sense of security among citizens. The objective of the challenge display
is to force the intruder or violator to retire and recede.
Signature and challenge displays are seen among almost all complex organisms. The example
below borrowed from the animal kingdom provides some interesting insights on principles such
as amplification and exaggeration that will be discussed in the final section. See Figures 1a & b.
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Figure 1a: Signature and challenge displays of a distant relative
a. The signature display consists only of dynamic components – a single pushup produced
by flexion of the forelimbs (a), followed by two head bobs. The signature display may
also be referred to as an assertive display.
b. The challenge display includes both dynamic and static modifiers. In addition to an initial
pushup (a), followed by several head bobs (b), there are two conspicuous static modifiers
– extension of the gular fold (c) and sagitall expansion (d), produced by a side-to-side
narrowing of the body.
Figure 1b: Signature & challenge displays: law enforcement officers

a. The organic signature display consists of a sufficiently tensed musculature (e.g., chest-
up) resulting in assertive posture and vigilant facial expression. The inorganic signature
displays include a sharp & snappy uniform (contrast this with the civilians in the
background) and law-enforcement related equipment (on the belt), cap\beret, and
insignia.
b. Challenge display would be the gait and authoritative pacing. Prominent display of the
weapon (e.g., baton). Sound of shoes hitting the pavement (sound of footsteps).
Overall, the police officer amplifies his power and authority through both organic and inorganic
means.
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2.2.1 Cultural Aspects: Social, Physical and Visual
Society has a stereotypical view of the law enforcement domain as masculine and couples it with
competence. Men [male officers] in particular display a sense of invulnerability and bravado in
dangerous work environments. Robin Ely [5], who researches gender issues in high reliability
organizations (military, police. offshore oil platforms, among others) describes the expression of
male identity in a high risk setting as follows:
Men went to great efforts to appear invulnerable in three realms—physical, technical, and
emotional—in order to prove their merit as workers and as men. Men demonstrated their
physical invulnerability by displaying bravado, including a disregard for physical safety, in
the presence of physical danger. In the technical realm, they upheld an image of
invulnerability by putting on a guise of being technically infallible, which meant refusing
to admit to or reveal evidence of failures, mistakes, or lack of knowledge. In the emotional
realm, presenting oneself as emotionally detached, unshakable, and fearless was crucial for
demonstrating both masculinity and competence.
The above exposition of the “masculine” mindset and the social reactions of the male officer to
the societal expectations play an important role with regard to his beliefs, motivations and
practice [of his vocations]. Design of systems and products for law enforcement should thus
absorb and reflect this mindset in its language. Design in this context becomes part social art and
part “Imagineering.” Whereby the visual vocabulary of design and the performance
characteristics of its technology should capture key terms such as “invulnerable,” “bravado,”
“infallible,” and last but not least “masculine.”5
Cultures prefer that the ideal man or women for occupations such as law enforcement or the
military should have a mesomorphic (muscular) body type as opposed to ectomorphic (lean) or
endomorphic (plump) body types. To this end, the police culture prefers recruitment and
[continuous] physical training that results in active duty police officers sporting a hard
musculature, upright posture and good fitness (“packaging” of the police officer). These
attributes besides being useful for on the job physical activities, also serve a useful function in
that they intrinsically promote – through low information signaling channels – the exhibition of
signature and challenge displays.
5
No gender bias is implied by the author here.
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Mesomorph body type Ectomorph body type Endomorph body type
Figure 3: The mesomorph body – with its inherent attributes of strength and vigor –promotes the
exhibition of signature and challenge displays. The visual language of products designed for the
law enforcement environment should be in harmony with the visual language of the mesomorph
body. This form of low information signaling, via the design language, can aid the exhibition of
signature and challenge displays (to be discussed later).
2.2.2 Fight or Flight?

When faced with danger an organism is prepared through a series of [automated] physiological
and psychological processes to fight or flee. The challenges posed to the law enforcement officer
are somewhat aligned with the classic fight-or-flight paradigm. But more importantly it should
be noted that a law enforcement officer in most cases refrains from inflicting violence at the first
opportunity and utilizes “posturing” to psychologically intimidate the target with the intent of
eventual subjugation (see Fig. 4). Simply put the emotion of “fear” is evoked in the target
person or population to trigger a “sensible process of deterrence” (Watson, 1978) among them.
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Figure 4: Research in intraspecies conflict has shown that the first decision point is not between
fight or flight, but rather submit or posture [6].
That is, like any other complex organism, humans too first try to convince their adversary
through both sight and sound not to offer any resistance. As Fig. 4 shows one of the typical – and
harmless – posturing actions is firing in the air, or even simply displaying a weapon.
The third, but lesser known, reaction to danger is the “freeze” response. In this case the
endangered subject is immobilized completely (a.k.a., “like a deer in the headlights”) due to
uncertainty of the outcome. A sense of helpless ensues as the subject is unable to select the
appropriate action or has simply run out of options to select from (more of this phenomenon will
be discussed in a later section.). But in some cases “freeze” is the most appropriate, deliberately-
driven response to remain hidden or for successful camouflaging.
2.3 Appeasement Displays

Appeasement can take many forms in the law enforcement domain for tactical purposes. For
instance, this could be for tactical purposes such as to lure the adversary into capture. Or
temporarily cede control of the situation until more help arrives.
On occasions appeasement may also result in a non-optimal outcome where the law enforcement
officer is taken as a hostage. However, it should be noted, this helps the subject achieve the
ultimate goal of preserving self and life.
2.4 Bonding Displays

This platonic bonding (“band of brothers or sisters”) tends to develop among a close knit group
of men or women, who operate together in dangerous and difficult circumstances. This is
nurtured by training and operational philosophy, where units (fire fighters, army, etc.) train
together, live together, work together and may even die together.
The bonding and banding of brothers, sisters, or a mixed-gender group, whether they be among
police officers, fire fighters, or soldiers seems to be the ultimate clarion call for service and
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sacrifice which is a typical form of altruism seen among many species. This bonding is best
summarized by the following quote:
They went to war because their country ordered them to. But in the end they fought not for their
country or their flag, they fought for each other.
- Lt. Col. Hal Moore in We were soldiers once…and young, which describes the Ia Drang
campaign (1965), the first major conflict of the Vietnam War [7].
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3.0 Dialogue
The earlier section discussed deeply rooted psychosocial behaviors that have been hardwired in
every human and were discussed in the light of law enforcement. This section, the dialog, will
build upon the prologue and create a bridge to the nature and design of solutions that might serve
both as an ally and utility to the officer in the field.
3.1 Performance Factors: calm, alert, vigilant, restrained or

aroused?
The psychological state of members undertaking a law enforcement mission, for better or worse
is akin to a hunt. After all, the objective here is to spot the violator [signal] among the sea of law
abiding citizens [noise], and take the appropriate remedial action (e.g., issue a speeding ticket or
arrest a suspect). To successfully accomplish this, police officers are trained and conditioned to
exercise a sense of calm, alertness, vigilance and restraint. But high risk events (car chases,
shoot-outs, etc.) put the officer in a state of high arousal that is both automatic and instinctual.
This psychobehavioral portrait expressly addresses issues pertaining to human performance in

highly aroused states (a.k.a., “high velocity human factors to be discussed in a later section) and
provides pointers on how these may be accommodated by optimizing system and technology
solutions. The focus here is not so much on general engineering psychology because they are
already being transmuted to good [product] design at the applied level through good usability
engineering practices.
The important difference between neurophysiological states – high arousal states (emotional) vs.
low arousal states (calm, alert, etc.) – is the fact that the former causes a significant disturbance
in the homeostasis6 of the organism. The resulting change in homeostasis, induced by changes in
heart rate, respiration rate, galvanic skin response, hormonal outputs, can dramatically change
the capacities and capabilities of humans. On this account, one may argue that traditional
product design – designed for, and [usability] tested in calm and alert states) – may lack the
robustness to accommodate a user whose capabilities are altered due to emotional arousal.
Finally, solutions developed to accommodate humans in aroused states, are likely to provide
better compatibility, not less, for humans operating both under steady state (non-aroused) and
spiked state (aroused) conditions. As the saying goes in mission critical domains: “hours of
boredom are punctuated with moments of terror.” Or put another way, nine-tenths of the time is
spent waiting for the remaining one-tenth to happen.
6
Homeostasis refers to the coordinated and largely automated physiological reactions required to maintain steady
internal states in a living organism. Homeostasis describes the automatic regulation of temperature, oxygen
concentration, or pH in the body.
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3.2 Psychological Processes
This section will provide a brief tour of pertinent psychological processes that play an important
role in sustaining a law enforcement officer’s performance in the field, particularly in states of
high arousal.
Human’s in many environments, including mission critical domains, operate under the rubric of
the OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide and Act) loop [8,9,10], either due to formal indoctrination
or purely due to innate mechanisms that drive them in that direction. The OODA is a mechanism
that is instinctually applied in service of tactical decision making in dynamic and constantly
evolving situations. The OODA loop is briefly explained below:
- Observation: the collection of data by means of the senses
- Orientation: the analysis and synthesis of data to form a mental perspective
- Decision: the determination of a course of action based on current mental perspective –
hypothesizing the best course of action based on past experiences, current events and
anticipation of the future
- Action: the implementing & physical playing-out of decisions
Figure 5: OODA Loop
Orientation (a.k.a., Orienting Response in psychological jargon), the most important element in
the OODA loop, is worthy of further explanation: Orientation has to do with the interpretation of
a situation based on our experience, culture, and heritage.. It shapes our decisions, actions and
observations, and, in turn, is shaped by the information and feedback entering into the
observation window.
The next few sections provide psychological briefs inline with the OODA architecture for
humans operating in mission critical domains.
3.2.1 Sensory-Perceptual Systems

Sensory-perceptual systems serve as the sensors to accomplish the “Observe” element of the
OODA loop. It is wrong to assume that they are purely visual in nature. They, in fact,
encompass all sensory systems (visual, auditory, tactual, olfactory, kinesthetic and gustatory).
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Humans are able to simultaneously and “preattentively” monitor a large number of perceptual
channels to locate potentially threatening events or of emotional significance. This process is
automatic and may even operate outside of awareness.
The preattentive processes (hardwired in the brain) are specifically tuned to seek stimuli with
affective valence (stronger for aversive stimuli such as guns, victim in a pool of blood, etc.) as
they involve issues relating to survival and sustenance of the individual. To this end, aversive
stimuli have the power to take partial to total control of perceptual processing mechanism (a.k.a.,
sensory tunneling). In turn, this may result in corresponding decrements of other ongoing
cognitive and motor activities (e.g., driving, speech, etc.). Research [11,12,13] has shown that
the sensory tunneling reduces the range of cue utilization (e.g., diminished peripheral vision or
change in [sensation] thresholds and resolution of sensory systems in general) and may even
reprioritize the activities that need to be carried out. The latter is best captured by the adage “a
dog in a hunt doesn’t stop to scratch its fleas.”
The sensory tunneling, during highly aroused states, occurs for the good of the individual – e.g.,
accomplish a goal, such as capturing a fugitive or ensuring safety in a high speed chase. One
could even dare say that any technology that is not contextual and non-supportive of current goal
– the current goal being the event or stimuli causing the aroused state – is a distracter and in all
likelihood will anyway be shut-out by the human operator. (Design solutions will be discussed to
address this issue and will be presented in Section 4.0.)
3.2.2 Attention
First a clarification, attention should never be assumed to be a limitation to vision. It
encompasses all the senses. For instance, inattention in the auditory modality may result in a low
decibel enunciator being missed. That is, unattended stimuli often go unnoticed even when
passing or impinging on one’s senses (ears, eyes, etc.).
Highly arousing events (e.g., street fight) and\or stimuli (e.g., road accident) have the power to
grab a subject’s attention involuntarily from an ongoing activity. This phenomenon, referred to
as “cognitive rubber necking” results in in-attentional blindness with a corresponding decrement
in performance in concurrent activities such as driving or monitoring a radio. In fact the
detection of threatening information can interrupt ongoing cognitive activity in ways that tune
subsequent perception, attention, judgment and even memory towards threat-related outcomes.
The general interpretation for this is that humans are endowed with a dedicated preattentive
system, which automatically and constantly scans the perceptual stream, for stimuli with
emotional significance (particularly threat stimuli). This is also true when people encounter
unusual or highly informative objects because they fixate faster, more often, and for longer
durations on them.
In practical terms, the resulting selective attention – due to the attention grabbing qualities of the
stimuli – interfere with multi tasking as they impede or don’t permit dividing of attention.
DHF-KFM-1 13
In the law enforcement context, one may hypothesize, that the automatic perceptual scanning is
complemented by a deliberate and conscious screening of the environment by the officer on
patrol. For example, scanning for a target with known description or trying to spot suspicious
activity, etc.
At one level, selective attention is good in that that it focuses all attention on overcoming an
adversarial situation or goal-driven activities. At another level, it is detrimental because it may
result in the subject missing or ignoring other important cues in the environment that may be
required to develop an adequate mental model7 or situation awareness (more on this later) for
successful goal accomplishment. Ideally technology solutions should not interfere with the
naturally occurring “selective attention” as this – more often than not – is literally required for
the agent to survive the dangers of the moment; however, technology solutions may focus on
either demanding [harshly] or calling [with varying degrees of urgency, including queue &
release8] the agent’s attention to current emergency task-related information or other diagnostic
and relevant cues or commands that may arise in a dynamic situation.
3.2.2.1 Attention as a Spotlight

Studies [14] in cross modal selective attention have shown that when a specific location is
attended for a task in one sensory modality, it seems that selective attention tends to get directed
to the same location in other modalities as well. In other words, if, vision (sensory modality) is
tracking a fleeing suspect, it is wrong to assume that the auditory sensory modality is not
occupied. In reality the “attention” of the auditory modality, too, tracks the fleeing suspect (e.g.,
diminishing sound of footsteps) due to the result of cross modal selective attention. Furthermore
modalities may lose sensitivity to other incoming acoustic signals such as a radio call sign. In
other words, the “beams of attention” of all modalities (visual, auditory, etc.) – even if just one
of them is serving as a primary sensor (“visual” in the fleeing suspect example) – align together
and attention turns as a spotlight with a laser beam like focus.
Optimal direction of attention is thus crucial for the subject to successfully “orient” to a given
situation in support of good decision making and action. Simply put, the subject’s attention
should be drawn to cues that are most relevant to achieving the goal state and he should be
successfully able to filter out irrelevant cues. The means to this end could either be through
training or with smart application of technology.
The psychobehavioral precepts (change in attention and sensory-perceptual systems) discussed in

this and the previous sections can be best appreciated with the following practical examples.
They are after-action reports [15] from police officers involved in real shooting incidents:
“…I was bringing my gun up. Dan was still fighting with him and the only thought that
came through my mind was ‘Oh, dear God, don’t let me hit Dan.” I fired five rounds. My
7
The user’s mental model of a system is defined as a rich and elaborate structure, reflecting the user’s understanding
of what the system contains how it works, and why it works that way. It can be conceived of knowledge about the
system sufficient to permit the user to mentally try out actions before choosing to execute.
8
Queue and release refers to the doctrine of holding back the presentation of information – not directly relevant to
current task and\or has low priority – when a user is experiencing high levels of stress and release it at a later time
when such stress has diminished and the agent has regained capacities that were previously not available.
DHF-KFM-1 14
vision changed as soon as I started to shoot. It went from seeing the whole picture to just
the suspect’s head. Everything else just disappeared. I didn’t see Dan anymore, didn’t see
anything else. All I could see was the suspect’s head”
“When he started toward us, it was almost like it was in slow motion and everything went
into a tight focus…when he made his move, my whole body just tensed up. I don’t
remember having any feeling from my chest down. Everything was focused forward to
watch and react to my target. Talk about an adrenaline rush! Everything tightened up, and
all my senses were directed forward at the man running at us with a gun. My vision was
focused on his torso and the gun. I couldn’t tell you what his left hand was doing. I have
no idea. I was watching the gun. The gun was coming down in front of his chest area, and
that’s when I did my first shots.
I didn’t hear a thing, not one thing. Alan had fired one round when I shot my first pair, but
I didn’t hear him shoot. He shot two more rounds when I fired the second time, but I didn’t
hear any of those rounds either…”
3.2.3 Decision and Action

Knowledge, speed and precision are vital ingredients for operators engaged in a highly dynamic
and unpredictable domain (e.g., law enforcement, fire fighting, combat, etc.). Therefore,
enabling the operator to develop the right mental perspective rapidly can help him take charge of
the situation – colorfully put “flummox the adversary” (when one exists) – by taking appropriate
action at the most optimal intersection of time and space.
Decision and action are heavily contingent on attention and the orienting response. They are
modulated by the mental model – and situation awareness [of a certain situation] – developed by
the agent.
In the law enforcement context having the correct mental model and developing the proper
situation are vital to goal accomplishment. Needless to say, solutions should be designed to
match with the mental model and expectations of the user and enable him or her develop the
proper situation awareness by providing the necessary data points, control options and cues.
3.2.3.1 Situation Awareness

A person's situation awareness can be described as his or her state of knowledge or mental model
of the surrounding situation or the environment. It is not just spatial orientation but includes an
understanding of the dynamics of the situation and the actions that are expected to take place in
the future [16].
The law enforcement officer, who has developed a good mental model of people and events,
coupled with the probable direction of a rapidly unfolding event, can be said to have situation
awareness. When a law enforcement officer has good situation awareness it increases his tactical
advantage (a key element for successful mission accomplishment in law enforcement).
DHF-KFM-1 15
Situation awareness boiled down to its simplest essence has three levels to it. This can be best
understood in terms of error taxonomy – i.e., through levels impediments that exist with regard
to developing good SA:
Table 1: SA Error Taxonomy [17]
Level 1: Failure to correctly perceive information

Data not available
Data hard to discriminate or detect
Failure to monitor or observe data
Misperception of data
Memory loss
Level 2: Failure to correctly integrate or comprehend information

Lack of or poor mental model
Use of incorrect mental model
Over-reliance on default values
Level 3: Failure to project future actions or state of the system

Lack of or poor mental model
Incorrect projection (over & under) of current trends
Inability to project current trends due to failures in level 1 & level 2
Broadly speaking, good situation awareness can be provided by negating the above. In simple
terms do the following:
1) Provide goal and current task relevant data with the desired salience
2) Bring to the fore goal-relevant cues in the environment
3) Training the agent to seek and obtain goal-relevant information and designing solutions
to enable the development of the correct mental model
4) Design solutions that provide the information sought by the agent on demand
5) Design solutions that provide sufficient transparency – not requiring multiple cognitive
transformations or interface manipulations – so that agents can develop the correct mental
model.
3.2.4 X-treme Arousal

On occasions, law enforcement officers may find themselves operating beyond the optimal state
of arousal9. Extreme arousal occurs – a.k.a., “predatory cardiovascular reactions” [6] – when the
heart rate exceeds 170 beats per minute due to unfolding events in the environment. These states
are of interest in the human factors standpoint as they result in the following:
- complex motor skills breakdown
- absolute breakdown of cognitive processing
- the forebrain shuts down – it is hijacked by the midbrain
- vision becomes restricted
- behavior becomes inappropriately aggressive.
9
The optimal state of arousal results in a heart rate of 115 to 145 beats per minute (bpm).
DHF-KFM-1 16
- Lose of perspective (e.g., get wrapped-up in the chase), resulting in fuzzy or loss in
situational awareness
A state of high arousal triggers a number of physiological responses (increase in heart rate,
sweating, excretion of certain hormones, etc.) in the body. The most infamous among this are
the parasympathetic reflex (blowing the ballast) and backlash10 [6].
Finally, the strategic thinker will benefit from a brief survey of five major hypotheses [18] that
have been advanced to explain performance decrements and increments under highly aroused
states. They are presented below:
1) The response competition hypothesis

When an emotionally significant event impels a subject towards an urgent action, and if that
response overrides task performance, then the responses triggered due to the arousing event are
said to compete with the responses required by the task. However, in some cases, arousing
emotional responses facilitate task performance if they help accomplish task-related goals. For
example, it is soccer lore that when a coach makes his player’s angry at the opposing team, it
improves their performance (running and kicking with force) because these species-specific
aggressive acts coincide with task (soccer) related goals. But too much of aggression could also
impair performance as it may result in disorganization of performance and may also result in
them earning penalties.
The “death blossom” is an example of a strongly motivated response provoked by a given

circumstance event though it is not the ideal one. For example, the death blossom phenomenon
has been observed among insufficiently trained soldiers of the newly constituted Iraqi army
because they fail in emotional regulation. That is, following a mortar, sniper, or an improvised
explosive device, the Iraqi solder is provoked in emptying their 30 round magazine and fire
whatever belt of ammunition happens to be in the machine gun [19]. Furthermore, Grunow [19]
writes “that in 90% of the cases, there is no target and the soldiers always agree that this is
extremely dangerous, in addition to being a grievous waste of ammunition. But they continue to
do it.”
In a general sense, under the response competition hypothesis, the more dominant responses
interfere with the less dominant ones. More dominant responses are those that are unlearned as
responses to the given situation, or better practiced, or more strongly motivated under the given
conditions.
10
In extremely stressful circumstances – the fight-or-flight response kicks-in – and the sympathetic nervous system
mobilizes all available energy for survival. These results in nonessential activities – under the control of the
parasympathetic system – such as digestion, bladder control, sphincter control being completely shut down. The
body literally “blows its ballast” (stress diarrhea and\or involuntary urination) in an attempt to provide all the energy
resources required to ensure survival. Next, the body must pay a physiological price for an energizing process this
intense. The price that the body pays is an equally powerful backlash when the neglected demands of the
parasympathetic system return. This parasympathetic backlash occurs as soon as the danger and the excitement is
over, and it takes the form of an incredibly powerful weariness.
DHF-KFM-1 17
2) The attentional capacity hypothesis
(This has been previously discussed in Section 3.2.2 under Attention. This is now revisited in the
context of extreme arousal).
Stimuli elicit or increase attentional arousal, and they do so in proportion to their significance, up
to some upper limit. A stimulus with intrinsic salience or biological significance attracts
attention, and in the process, restricts the range of cue utilization. That is, fewer cues are
attended to. And peripheral cues are the ones that are usually neglected. This accounts for
performance increment. Decrement occurs, when the subject has other things to attend to than
those relevant to the task at hand or is so preoccupied as not to have attentional capacity to
devote to construction of deliberate action, as opposed to simple, unlearned response.
3) The overflow hypothesis

Here it is hypothesized that strong neuronal impulses due to arousing emotional stimuli disturb
other functions. Some examples are disturbances in oxygen metabolism due to high epinephrine
secretion under emotion. More conspicuous are disturbances of motor coordination by trembling
and speech difficulties due to a dry mouth. An example of this might be seen in the study which
found that artificially induced stress (simulated artillery fire) affected the accuracy of rifle fire
among soldiers, probably due to inadequate motor coordination [20].
4) The disorganization hypothesis

Emotional stress can be said to be disorganizing by nature and necessity, to the extent that it
results from the incompatibility of required and available responses or information presented and
available dispositions to process it. It is also envisaged that the inability to come up with
appropriate responses due to high uncertainty or danger may mobilize the “behavioral inhibition
system,” which blocks the execution of action, including thought.
A real life example of the disorganization hypothesis (incompatibility of response) can be best
appreciated by a military advisor’s [19] experience with a newly constituted Iraqi army:
At another time, an enemy sniper attack triggered a reaction that had Iraqis “returning
fire” nearly 90 minutes after the enemy had delivered one deadly shot. This “burst
reaction” may be attributed to Iraqi’s experiencing denial, anger, and grief all at the same
time….Their tool of choice is the blunt instrument of force directed liberally at all threats
real and perceived.
5) The regression hypothesis

It is conjectured that high arousal results in a form of regression that results in an organism
getting into a more primitive form of functioning as the intensity increases. This has been
referred as “functional decortication.” Simply put, the lower centers overrule higher centers or
because higher centers are unable to devise ways of coping. In addition, regression itself can be
considered a response mode available when all else fails: taking recourse to childish passivity,
dependent attitude, magical thought, or taking recourse to elementary preprogrammed behaviors
such as shouting and foot stamping.
DHF-KFM-1 18
In closing, the psychobehavioral reactions laid out in this and previous sections can be best
appreciated from the experiential description of a marine in real combat [21]:
[note: this author’s interpretation of the psychobehavioral precepts discussed in this paper,
including the applicable hypotheses from the list above, are commented with italicized text in the
quote below).
We were only three kilometers south of the bridge. Every tree, every wall, and every
building looked hostile (autovigilance11). I was afraid for the first time in Iraq. Against the
white noise of the blood rushing through my head, I heard my feet tapping involuntarily on
the Humvee floor (overflow hypothesis). My knees stitched up and down like a sewing
machine (overflow hypothesis). My mouth felt dry and gummy (parasympathetic reflex).
Everything seemed to pass in a blur (attentional capacity hypothesis). I thought of war
stories that talked about hyperclarity in combat, seeing every blade of grass and feeling
colors more intensely than ever before. But for me, whole city blocks faded into gray fuzz.
I feared I was processing information too slowly, seeing only one of every ten things I
should (regression hypothesis). I felt short changed. I wanted hyperclarity, too.
11
Danger induced emotion typically biases subsequent cognition. This biased cognition known as autovigilance
[22] makes humans see threats in everything and everywhere, right after being exposed to danger, in their immediate
environment.
DHF-KFM-1 19
DHF-KFM-1 20
4.0 Thought-log: Theory to Practice
The intent of this discourse was never to provide checklists, formulas or recipes. It is but to
provide a framework to stimulate thinking – the “how” of thinking and not the “what” of
thinking – and a platform for ideas to germinate and let solutions emerge as they will.
Ultimately, it is the solutions emerging from this process that will determine the technologies, if
any, to realize the desires, motivations and goals of law enforcement both at the human level
(officer) and domain level (organizational & practice). Put another way, one doesn’t begin with
a technology and fish around for problems to solve. Or worse yet, create “make-work problems”
– where none existed before – so that technology can be put to use.
Given the novel approach this discourse has taken, this section could be best described by the
word “Thoughtlog.”12 Because it culminates in a thought process by developing a framework
and platform for thinking and developing solutions.
As mentioned earlier, the intent of this section is not to provide a recipe – i.e., cliché solutions on
a piecemeal basis (e.g., “make the knobs bigger but keep the footprint smaller”) – but to
encourage and engage in creativity at the level of creating the next paradigm shift. And
creativity itself, as one knows, involves cross disciplinary thinking where the framework of one
field might be used to think afresh of another. Thus the reader should not be surprised if
analogies from the ethology of lizards to jet fighters taking-off from naval carriers are used to
illustrate broad concepts and to stimulate thinking during the course of this discourse.
4.1 The Language of Design

Section 2.0 (Prologue) described signature (assertive) and challenge (territorial) displays and
how they may provide the intrinsic motivation to the law enforcement officer who is charged
with the responsibility of maintaining law and order. The aforesaid ethological traits can be best
transmuted into a design proposition by stating that products designed for the law enforcement
officer exude the following in the way they look, feel and work:
1) Physical authority (particularly mesomorphic qualities: muscular and edgy)
2) Mental authority
3) Moral authority
The above three should work in tandem to provide the desired “postural” authority (posturing
capability), which makes the law enforcement officer to be perceived as a dependable, trustable,
reliable and superior force. This is nothing but, in the language of marketing design, “branding”
of the service in the eyes and minds of its customers. In simple terms, it is one of the means to
facilitate law enforcement to dissuade potential law breakers and at the same time enhance the
sense of confidence in the law enforcement officer amongst citizens.
12
Thus the ad hoc word “Thoughtlog” was coined and has been used as a title for this section, which is a natural
progression to the preceding sections that were titled prologue and dialogue.
DHF-KFM-1 21
It is now the designer’s responsibility to take these abstract values and with the appropriate use
of form, material, color and method translate them into a design language that will be in harmony
with the goal and value systems of law enforcement. A design philosophy that is enshrined in
the above values will automatically give rise to other desired attributes such as ruggedness,
robustness, etc., which are well known and desired attributes in this particular domain.
Furthermore, the exultation of the design language founded in the above precepts should be all
pervasive (visible & invisible): should encompass from the smallest mic to the largest dash-
mounted radio, to perhaps even the invisible innards of a device.
Visual design language is not limited to form or color. It may also apply to miniscule elements
such as LEDs (e.g., brightness and color intensity), logos and markings, among others.
Besides visual design language, a “law enforcement language” of design needs to impinge on
every sensory system (obviously this only covers in non-covert applications). So, for example,
besides visual aesthetics, the auditory chirps, crackles and sounds, tactile sensations feed back
from the controls, feel of material should exude a sense of authority.
Finally, designers should explore avenues by which a device could both be the medium and the
object for the fostering of the innate trait of bonding [display]. That is, find out how a device can
help the team bond together; and find out how the device by design can foster user-device
bonding.
4.2 Sensory-Perceptuals
Let’s refresh our memory – a summation, if you will – of what was discussed in Section 3.2.1:
Sensory systems react to certain class of stimuli with speed, automaticity and non-volitionally.
Furthermore, stressful situations may make them oblivious to other stimuli, including those
emanating from systems and widgets. Next, the sensory system itself will react to the valence of
the stimuli by choosing to amplify certain aspects of the environment and increase\decrease
resolution of signals in the environment.
4.2.1 Tunneling
Is there a way to accommodate the innate “tunneling” effects noticed among humans? We can
begin with trying to utilize whatever slack capacity may be left in the outer fringes of the tunnel.
That is, maximize the use of the short-term sensory store (ability to glean and temporarily store
information with little or no attention) and by harnessing the veridicality characteristic
(preservation of the physical details of the stimulus).
4.2.2 Design Deliberations on Sensory-Perceptuals

Design deliberations will begin by considering the innate traits and characteristics of the sensory-
perceptual systems of humans.
DHF-KFM-1 22
4.2.2.1 Vitalities
Vitalities are those pieces of equipment or controls that are needed at a moments notice in a
given context and have to be interacted with in support of ongoing goal-driven behavior.
First let us begin by identifying vital devices, vital controls within the vital devices and vital
pieces of information that need to be communicated in a given work platform (e.g., a police car
or a police officer on foot). Next, a “pyramid of vitalities” needs to be developed, particularly in
the context of highly dynamic situations. That is, the vital elements (“vitalities”) of a system that
must standout when the sensory-Perceptual (SP) capacities are degraded to varying degrees due
to task-related circumstances (Figure 6). For instance, one ascends to the apex of the pyramid
when it is deemed that this one device or control is absolutely vital (e.g., emergency button) for
survival – i.e., when the subject’s sensory system is fully locked to critical stimuli in the
environment. The top-middle of the pyramid will be the area where there is partial slack in the
sensory system and the human agent may have the capacity to preattentively process second
level vitalities (e.g., channel knob location, PTT, etc.). And so on. The bottom-most part of the
pyramid will be an area where the subject is paying little or no attention to externalities and is
paying full attention to interacting with the workstation (e.g., car is parked and an electronic
form is being filled.).
It is important to note, that the pyramid of vitalities is truly contextual in nature: that is, different
situations may require certain [interface or informational] vitalities to be cognitively, spatially
and temporally ‘filtered’ and making them ascend to the top of the pyramid. Whereas the rest,
depending on their degree of vitalities descend to the bottom of the pyramid as residue.
DHF-KFM-1 23
emergency
button
channel & Vital system elements

S-P Capacities volume control,
(“capacity” increases (fewer & fewer elements
PTT + above become vital as one ascends
towards base)
to the top)
sirens & lights, RADAR control,

critical system status (encryption
signal strength, etc.) + above
data entry, system settings (e.g.,

encryption) + all of the above
Figure 6: Pyramid of vitalities, plots the relationship between decreasing\increasing sensory-

perceptual capacities and the corresponding “vitalities” of a solution space or device. This
example uses a police car and relevant system-elements.
Note: The above example is for illustration purposes only. These are not recommendations for actual system design.
Once the vitalities have emerged in the form of a pyramid, standard design principles (some are
stated in general terms) can be applied to enhance their salience & memorability – in other
words, sense their presence and interact with them without paying little or no attention.
4.2.2.2 Higher order design directions

Based on their vitalities, most vital elements should standout (conspicuous) and less important
ones should recede into the background. Conspicuity could be designed through various means
(provide salience through standard design practices such as size, color, etc.). But more
importantly the users should be made aware of their presence (vital controls) and availability
even without them being in the direct line of sight. Therefore, design should consider the
following:
1. vital controls and devices should have a “loud” design language – that is, enhance
their noticeability even when the senses are not actively paying any attention to
them. In other words, loudly announce the presence and availability of vital
controls by piercing the [user’s] fog of inattention
2. promote instant comprehension of an element or device (particularly “form
factors” could be helpful in accomplishing this, besides other avenues)
DHF-KFM-1 24
3. promote proprioceptive memorability for controls that have to be accessed in
space and operated via physical contact – including tactile recognizability (via
surface finish and\or material)
4.2.3 Reflexive Reactions

Reflexive reactions (a.k.a., unconditional response13) can be used as a design solution when it
becomes a “must” to get a human agent’s attention at any cost (e.g., cease fire or evacuate order
from command post). This approach is particularly suited for those situations when the human
agent’s attention is completely locked into stimuli that have gained extraordinary currency due to
their hedonic valence or exigencies of the moment. That is, when one tunes oneself out – a type
of sensorial muting – of every other aspect of the environment except for one. That is the stimuli
or event, which due to its biological significance or emotional salience has completely consumed
the agent’s attentional resources and in the process has not left any slack in resources to process
other stimuli or events.
The tunnel of attention can be cracked open by taking advantage of reflexive reactions (a.k.a.,
unconditional response) that require neither cognition nor awareness. Obviously, stimuli such as
an electrostatic discharge, etc., that can inflict significant pain should be ruled out. However,
stimuli, that tends close towards evoking a startle response without causing any undue
discomfort may be considered. Some examples are a jet of warm of cold air, a tactile ripple
(simulation of someone getting one’s attention through touch or brushing on one’s arm) could be
considered. Additionally, the overall strength of the attention grabbing capability of the stimuli
can be increased by presenting it in multiple modalities and keeping them synchronized. For
example, the pitch\peak of the tactile ripple (signal) may be synchronized with [pitches & peak]
that of a tone.
4.2.3.1 Conditioning
4.2.3.1.1 Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning14 could be exploited to instantly produce the desired psychological state
(e.g., vigilance) in the law enforcement officer. For example, whenever sirens & lights are used
in a car, one can assume that the officer is likely in a state of alert (adrenalin rush, rise in heart
rate, pupil dilation, etc.) because he is either rushing to a scene or is in pursuit of another car
[violation]. Over a period of time, these audiovisual effects become conditioned through
associative learning to the psychological state of alertness. Now, whenever, an officer has be
aroused and put into full alert, the conditioned stimulus (e.g., sound of sirens) could be broadcast
on the radio in intermittent bursts. (This is somewhat akin to the use of the bugle, bagpipes and
13
An unconditioned response is an automatic and unlearned response to specific stimuli. Example: withdrawal of
the hand (unconditioned response) when it has inadvertently come into contact with an object that is very hot
(unconditioned stimulus).
14
a.k.a., Pavlovian conditioning (salivary conditioning of dogs: sequential presentation of tone & food) results when
a formerly neutral stimulus is “conditioned” to produce an unconditioned reflex through associative learning
facilitated from repeated trials.
DHF-KFM-1 25
drums as a rallying cry when troops marched into battle in earlier times.) The above illustration
is cited for further exploration and exploitation of the classical conditioning phenomenon to
encourage the designer to consider similar pathways.
4.2.3.1.2 Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning15 has been put to good effect to increase the firing rate among infantry men
in actual combat. This has been accomplished by modifying their behavior by providing
incentives on the firing range, including the increase in fidelity of the firing simulation. It has
been found [23] that providing 3-D mannequins (targets) that suddenly pop-up produce better
results (firing rates & kills) in actual combat compared to infantry men who were trained with
the traditional [fixed] bulls-eye target. Furthermore, operant conditioning was brought to bear by
proportionately “rewarding” the trainees with their number of [mannequin] “kills.”
The application of operant conditioning for the law enforcement domain in a gaming paradigm is
explored below. For instance, the speed and accuracy with which an officer is able to turn on
different combination of sirens & lights following a cue, for specific situations, can be measured
(in secs.) and feedback could be provided in the form of points scored. Variations can be added
to this game by incorporating scenarios such as executing these sequences when the vehicle is
parked or when driving at different speeds on the driving range. The points scored in this game
can be cashed for, say, a gift coupon, etc. This will not only sharpen the officers reaction and
motor skills via operant conditioning but will also enhance their social status among peers by
providing a friendly, competitive gaming environment (publishing the scores in the bulletin
board or website). Similar behavior modifying approaches via operant conditioning that enhance
officer performance can be explored.
4.3 Orientation Solutions
The orienting reflex – reflexively turning attention to the source of a loud sound or novel
stimulus – is hardwired in humans. When information processing becomes complex and goal-
driven – e.g., orienting oneself to a map to obtain directions and drive to a destination –
orientation takes on a new meaning; it is more than a reflex. The example of map orientation and
driving to a destination is further expanded below:
1) a mental model of the navigation space needs to be established
2) cues in the map need to be actively searched – and matched – in the environment
3) as the matching – or failure to match -- occurs, the mental model needs to be updated
4) as the driver flows through a dynamic situation he develops expectancies on what to see
next or expects to see – he develops situation awareness
In the law enforcement domain, the rapid orientation is key for good decision-making and,
ultimately, mission accomplishment. A list of key elements that need to be considered for
successful orientation solutions in fast-paced and highly dynamic situations are presented below:
15
Operant conditioning deals with the modification of voluntary behavior through the use of consequences.
DHF-KFM-1 26
4.3.1 Time
Time is to be treated as a scarce commodity. Orientation truly is never complete in a highly
dynamic “mission critical” environment. Because in mission critical domains, once the mission
has begun, change is a constant whereas the rate of change is not. It may also oscillate from
anything between mild to wild (e.g., SWAT team operations; high speed pursuits, etc.). In terms
of the time dimensions (t), design solutions should enable the agent to keep situation awareness
current at all times – i.e., mentally go toe-to-toe with the situation as it evolves in real time.
Failing to provide the means to this and\or the agent to maintain current SA will be detrimental:
it gives rise to confusion, chaos, panic, fear, mental paralysis and eventually an implosion that
knocks the agent out of action. It should be noted, that the “situation” (poor SA) and not the
adversarial event or human(s) (e.g., gun shot or ambush) was the cause for failure. Tragically for
the police officer, the situation disabled him before a bullet was fired!
Thus it is imperative to provide all the precious nuggets of information so that the officer can
keep his SA current to the extent where he is reliably able to predict the trajectory of the
unfolding event, including the ability to forecast his adversaries’ next move.
In terms of the future system state, design solutions should strive to minimize (Δtf = min.): that
is, by providing information that enables the human agent to reliably forecast the future system
state in the least possible amount of time.
This section as you may note doesn’t provide explicit prescriptions on the “how” of SA. It is a
more a “why” of SA and to emphasize the crucial role it plays in volatile and rapidly evolving
mission critical engagements. The strategic thinker will have to apply the above discussed
precepts and concepts during the design and test process of systems and widgets.
4.3.2 Pattern Recognition

Orienting responses can be quickened when human agents attain rapid situation awareness.
Domain experts are good at rapidly developing the correct situation awareness because they seek
out cues that are relevant (goal oriented) and develop reliable expectancies on how a situation
may evolve based on their own experiences. The underlying theme here is pattern recognition in
the context of a current goal – i.e., the human agent instantly evaluates the emerging pattern by
comparing it with a mental model (e.g., a map) or with a prototypical situation built from past
experience or training (e.g., the type and nature of evasive actions and maneuvers a fleeing
suspect is likely to execute on a crowded highway: jump to the opposite lane, jump into the
shoulder and cut into the adjacent service road, etc.).
In a nutshell, all cues and information that are relevant to the current goal – a.k.a., “goal-
directed” – should be made available to the human agent. If the system is capable of determining
essential goal-related information – filtering out the rest – then, just those should be displayed.
But the system should also permit the agent to access information [not displayed] on demand as
DHF-KFM-1 27
the situational dynamics may warrant. This idea is driven home by the figure below, whose
conclusion is that “More Data does not necessarily equal More Information.”
Figure 7: Providing pertinent data that matches with “goal-driven” informational needs
It is wrong to assume that all attention and orientation is purely goal driven in a dynamic
environment. Data-driven processing is equally important as newly emerging cues in the
environment may result in modification of ongoing sub-goals with regard to the major goal or
the mission intent. In other words, information overloading or unwarranted salience of certain
pieces of information should not result in the human agent becoming insensitive to new
information – i.e., don’t occlude the data-driven channel; there should be some slack in the
sensory-perceptual and attentional resources to be drawn to valuable cues in the environment.
The impediments for fast pattern recognition are the limits of attention and working memory of
the human agent. Thus design solution should not burden or mislead attention to the wrong piece
of data or tax working memory to the point of paralysis. It is this author’s view that the optimal
design strategy would be to cash-in on the human agents innate skills (experience & intuition)
and let him seek the information he desires with minimum friction. That is, make an informed
design decision from field studies as to what pieces of information (e.g., current talkgroup, car
speed, graphical representation & verbal description of incident location, nature of the incident,
etc.) needs to be displayed (primary status) for a given context – and display them. Additionally,
provide pieces of goal relevant information – let us refer that as peripheral primary information –
that may be required to extrapolate the future system status (e.g., time taken to drive to the
incident site from current location) . And, anything that does not qualify as primary information
in a given context should be treated as secondary information. In terms of design, their salience
should be diminished, or masked, and should be made accessible depending on their value within
one or two levels of interaction (i.e., practice an Information on Demand (IOD) paradigm).
Below are some examples of necessary & unnecessary data when an officer is in a pursuit of a
car [driver is suspected to be armed and dangerous] who has refused to pullover:
Necessary information (partial list includes good-to-have* information shown with an asterisk):
1. Availability of reinforcements (additional police cars)
2. If reinforcement is available how long will it take to join\cut-off the chase
DHF-KFM-1 28
3. Information to make a decision concerning the setup of a roadblock
4. Knowledge of traffic conditions ahead
5. Status of the suspect (drunk? armed?)
6. *Motivation for failing to comply the pull-over request
7. *Condition and capabilities (speed, power, etc.) of the suspect’s car
Unnecessary information (includes irrelevant information):

8. Engine temperature of the police car
9. Tomorrow’s weather forecast
Going down this path one can strip the information content to the most relevant (provide
appropriate salience) and do away with the rest.
For instance, in the pursuit example, one can increase the salience of two important pieces of
relevant information (e.g., make them occupy the entire display space):
1. Name of the current radio talk group or channel
2. Numerical display of the speed of the vehicle
…and irrelevant pieces of information can be eliminated all together from the display:
a. Icon for unread messages, perhaps even, signal strength16 (in the case of the radio
display)
b. Engine temperature (in the case of the vehicle’s main dashboard display).
4.3.3 Mission Space Awareness (MSA)

Every mission is conducted in a mission space17. A successful orienting response requires
mission space awareness: that is, knowledge derived from developing an abstract mental picture
of the mission relevant space in which one is operating and immersed in terms of one’s spatial,
temporal and informational relationships with friendly, unfriendly and neutral human agents,
including objects and machines.
The three ‘relationships’ are elaborated below with examples:
Spatial: Which part of town (street intersection) is the scene of the incident (armed heist)?
Temporal: In how many minutes will the support team arrive?
Informational: Number of adversaries & hostages; weapons and explosives likely to be used by
the adversaries.
It is imperative that every type of mission be analyzed in terms of the above three relationships
(spatial, temporal, informational) with the intent of providing the essential informational
ingredients so that the agent in the field can develop the desired MSA.
Mission space awareness itself can be classified into three types:
16
Signal strength may be shown when either a transmission fails or when the vehicle enters a dead zone.
17
The term “space” in mission space awareness is not limited to physical space. It is truly an abstract, mental space
of the physical space in which a mission is conducted and includes people, machines and objects relevant to that
mission that may operate within and outside that physical space.
DHF-KFM-1 29
1. Global mission space awareness (Glob MSA)
2. Local mission space awareness (Loc MSA)
3. Glocal mission space awareness (Gloc MSA)
As a mission unfolds the human agent may require these three types of awareness in different
points in time.
1Loc MSA
2 Loc MSA Glob MSA:

Gloc MSA Command & Control
3 Loc MSA
Figure 8: An abstract “mental” representation – not merely physical – of the three types of
mission space awareness space with [simplified] couplings are shown.
The LocMSA of teams 1-3 in the field are shown with green ellipses. The “Glocal” MSA for team 1 and command
& control is shown with the magenta colored ellipse. The Global MSA, usually required for C&C, is shown with a
blue colored ellipse. As noted below, the glocal MSA is formed by feedback and feed forward loops between
individual teams and C&C. Each team forms its own glocal MSA, which may either be unique or identical – or
somewhere between these extremities – in relation to other teams. This figure only shows the Glocal MSA for team
1 and C&C.
Global Mission Space Awareness (Glob MSA)

Global mission space is defined as the abstract space – both physical and mental – that contains
and connects the lead elements in the field and actionable18 elements with the command post. As
noted above, these are disparate elements that may be scattered in space and have different levels
of relevance or irrelevance in time. Global mission space awareness can now be defined as the
awareness of all the aforesaid elements, their status (availability\unavailability), comprehension
of their characteristics (e.g., capabilities) and dynamics (probable future states).
Global mission space awareness, for the most part, is synonymous with strategic situation
awareness. At the command and control level it addresses [awareness of] issues such as
availability and status of assets (man & machine). In the field, it matches assets with task &
situational demands, by raising up or lowering the tempo of the mission based on temporal
demands and marinating the focus of the mission.
18
Actionable elements are those that need to be apprehended, reconnoitered, controlled, managed, protected or
secured.
DHF-KFM-1 30
Glob MSA for an agent (e.g., car patrol officer) in the field might be considered a projection of
the following (sample list with examples in parenthesis):
1. the officer should be aware of the command status (e.g., mission active)
2. support status (dispatch and friendlies in the field)
3. status of actionable elements (accident scene or hostage taker)
4. Spatial relationships to relevant fixed and moving elements in space
Local Mission Space Awareness (Loc MSA)

The awareness of space within the reach of the human agent’s sensory system with minimal or
no augmentation of the senses and no mental abstraction of the immediate, local, personal or
future is defined as local mission space awareness. Typically this is the actionable area where
action is being played out in the setup phase or final phase:
- a setup is the preceding step in a series of steps that may be required to accomplish a goal
- final phase is akin to a final thrust where the action culminates in a decisive way (capture
of a fugitive or the disabling of an armed hostage taker)
The understanding of Loc MSA is furthered with more examples below.

Being aware of a speeding car is an example of local mission space awareness (when the mission
is to detect, stop and issue tickets to speeding cars). Another example would be the presence of
an armed hostage taker in a house. Then the house, its immediate perimeter, knowledge of its
occupants, demands and disposition of the hostage taker constitute local mission space
awareness.
Local situational awareness in other words is full of tactical elements and is synonymous with
tactical awareness.
As local mission awareness is directly obtained by the senses, it is important that the sensory-
perceptual system not be overloaded by displays and enunciators that are irrelevant to current
goals. Particularly, in the law enforcement domain, local mission space awareness is likely to be
of higher importance for reasons concerning physical safety of the officer and due to fast action-
reaction times (e.g., locate-chase-apprehend cycle).
Glocal Mission Space Awareness

Glocal (global + local) mission space awareness is necessitated when the mission demands rapid
and dynamic switching between global and local space awareness. This entails that glocal MSA
is a necessary product for command & control and the field officer.
Gloc MSA at Command & Control Level: Feedback provided by the field officer from a – and
the knowledge gleaned [through non-human sensors] from a particular – locale results in
command & control’s Gloc MSA getting updated. In terms of information flow this can be
considered a “feedback” segment of the loop.
Gloc MSA at Field Officer Level: The Gloc MSA of the field officer will undergo changes when
the focus of effort in the local space is shifted due to directives issued by command & control
DHF-KFM-1 31
because of their [global] knowledge of the “larger picture.” In terms of information flow this can
be considered a “feed forward” segment of the loop.
In most cases, it is the command[er] that requires glocal mission space awareness: overall status
of the mission as it is evolving, knowledge of surface and gaps (impenetrable and penetrable
points) at various locales in physical space, status and capacities of resources, etc. In some
cases, the individual officer in the field may require glocal mission space awareness when
precise coordination combined with deception, surprise and speed are key characteristics of the
mission. Such circumstances are likely to arise in SWAT team operations or when conducting
urban warfare (anti-gang & counterinsurgency operations). For example, agents (A group)
conducting reconnaissance might be covertly updating the situation in local space to command;
next the command directs another group of agents (B group) to distract the adversaries in to
break their cohesion. Based on the “birds eye view” of the situation provided by command
(global) and the current situation on the ground (local), the A group will develop glocal mission
space awareness and will chose an appropriate moment to strike and apprehend the adversaries.
4.4 Decision-Making
Classical Definition:
Decision making simply involves the review of [alternative] courses of action and the
selection of one among them – the preferred course – as a hypothesis to be tested.
Mission critical domains are besieged with uncertainty. They are volatile, complex and
ambiguous and are beset with both fog19 and friction20. The operational factors are best
governed and conveyed by the adage “no plan survives the battle.” In other words, planning,
training and experience only go so far, as every situation and personality, which an officer
encounters in the field are likely to be unique. And more importantly, these unique situations
have to be handled under tremendous time pressure. The agent has to cycle through his or her
OODA cycle at high velocities, simply to outthink the adversary or a situation with rapidly
unfolding events to come out victorious.
“Angular speed” (the ability to locate target, out-think and anticipate) is as – if not more –
important as "linear speed" (speed across the ground) in order to survive and win on future
battlefields [24]. William Lind in his seminal work on maneuver warfare [25] delves into high
speed decision making, particularly in the context of out pacing and out thinking an adversary in
highly dynamic situations when time is compressed due to action occurring at high velocities [in
military and air combat maneuvering (dog fight) jargon this is known as a situation with “fast
transients”]. Lind goes on to write:
If one side in a conflict can consistently go through the OODA cycle faster than the other,
it gains a tremendous advantage. By the time the slower side acts, the faster side is doing
something different from what he observed, and his action is inappropriate. With each
19
Fog usually refers to the lack of clear and\or complete information.
20
Friction refers to the physical impediments faced by an agent in the field.
DHF-KFM-1 32
cycle, the slower party’s action is inappropriate by a larger time margin. Even though he
desperately strives to do something that will work, each action is less useful than its
predecessor; he falls farther and farther behind. Ultimately, he ceases to be effective.
Research in the domains that involve fast transients have shown that humans adopt a decision
process known as Recognition-Primed Decision Making (RPD) [26]. This model was developed
based on empirical evidence by studying decision making processes of firefighters and first
responders. It revealed that personnel in these domains do not use a multi option, multi
hypotheses approach – or an analytic style of decision making – to deliberate and optimize their
course of action. They use a singular evaluation approach due to time pressure, dynamics of a
situation (changing context) and due to the ambiguity inherent in the situation. This results in the
decision-maker using his skill, knowledge and experience to intuit (instantaneous recognition of
the pattern inherent in a situation) and choose the first workable option (“satisficing”) that comes
to mind.
RPD, a style of hypervigilant decision making occurs in naturalistic settings encumbered with
time pressure, conflicting or ambiguous information and where the stakes are high
(consequences of error are costly). Its characteristics are as follows [27]:
1. filtering of information (a nonsystematic or selective information search)
2. narrowing of attention
3. consideration of limited alternatives (ends when one stumbles across the first
workable option)
4. use of heuristics to accelerate information processing
5. rapid evaluation of data
6. selection of a solution without extensive review or reappraisal
7. rapid closure
The above discussion is used to impress the reader on the shortness in duration of the sensor-
actor loop in mission critical domains and the high velocity at which this might occur. What this
means is that shaving seconds off every decision-making node – including the human-machine
interface – is critical to take control of a situation.
Human performance at high velocities (fast OODA cycles) leads to the obvious question as what
can be done to the interface to facilitate correct decision making when the user has little of
everything: time, attention, mental & physical dispositions. A general guide on what could be
done to the HMI is whittled down as simple laws, which are elucidated in the next section.
DHF-KFM-1 33
4.4.1 The Laws of High Velocity Human Factors (HVHF)
In WW II, Blitzkrieg – meaning lightning war – was brought to bear by Germans with lethal
effect on their adversaries. “It married relatively two new technologies – radio and the internal
combustion engine – to facilitate a tactic of rapid, coordinated movement” [28].
[fighter pilots]…make sense out of a huge, three-dimensional chunk of sky in which other jets,
trying to best them, are wildly maneuvering at speeds sometimes approximating those of fired
bullets. Somehow, in the millisecond-long glimpses of almost imperceptible targets afforded
them, and despite crushing G forces, fear (hopefully controlled), and confusion, the really
talented can deduce enough hair-trigger information to project their opponent’s travel in the
next fifteen to thirty seconds and make the appropriate countermoves [29].
Mission critical domains are typically synonymous with terms of art such as lightning wars,
thunder runs, high-speed pursuits, medevac, among others. In these instances, human agents
have to perform tasks at high velocities (time pressure), usually work with ambiguous
information and rapidly changing contexts (fast transients) and when the stakes are high (wrong
decisions can cost life and limb). The environment is more often than not volatile, uncertain,
complex and ambiguous. Action at high velocities becomes essential to sustain life and preserve
limbs. A drop in velocity at the critical moment can turn victory into defeat and capture into
loss. These moments of frenzied action and high velocity cognition are for the professional. It is
certainly not “amateur hour.”
DHF-KFM-1 34
Figure 9: Comparative Cognitions and Stressors
A high speed police pursuit, particularly in crowded city streets, is analogous to the action seen
during the take-off of a jet fighter* from the runway of a naval carrier. In both cases, the human
agent experiences punctuated equilibrium: the state of equilibrium (hours of steady or low
intensity action, including boredom) being punctuated with brief periods of high velocity – i.e.,
intense, dizzying, [may include] terrifying, high stakes – action.
*A navy jet fighter, the F/A-18 Hornet, has just been catapulted from a US navy carrier. The Hornet becomes
airborne when it reaches the end of a 300 ft. long runway in just 2.5 seconds while hitting the maximum catapult
take-off speed of over 180 mph. To prevent the jet from plummeting into the sea, lift becomes critical at that very
millisecond when the nose wheel loses contact with the surface of the runway. To get this right, utmost cognitive
demands are placed on the crew in the cockpit and on the ground, under extreme emotional and temporal stressors.
As one may note, piloting (cognitive performance) – Take-off? Abort & eject? Attitude rotation? – during the 2.5
seconds (compressed time) mark is passed, at high velocities (over 180 mph) after experiencing a rapid acceleration
(180 mph in 0 – 2.5 sec.), including a jarring and intense body-jolting experience, which involves high stakes
(possible loss of life, damage or loss of aircraft costing millions of dollars). The above illustration is used to impress
the reader regarding the dynamics of rapid cognitions that occur – or need to occur – in mission critical domains
such as high speed police chases, SWAT operations, administration of emergency medical procedures, and fire
fighting.
Likewise, a police officer has to make a judgment call and decide (cognitive) whether it is safe to continue the high
speed chase in a crowded city street. At the same time, he continues to be a node, in the command and control
network, self-directed or being directed, maintaining his bearing and coordinating his actions as the scenario unfolds
at a rapid pace. The emotional stressors are multifold as he can’t inflict any injury or loss of life, to himself and
other innocent civilians, including damage to property.
DHF-KFM-1 35
Simply put the human agent no longer canter through the O-O-D-A loop in these circumstances
but cycles through it at high velocities. In other words, he is forced to observe, orient, decide and
act in seconds and not hours. Metaphorically speaking the human agent needs to cognitively
gallop through the OODA cycle (Fig. 10) to keep up with the rapidly changing [or intentionally
engineered] situation, and thus, requiring rapid, concise assessment of the situation followed by
quick decision making and quick execution of the decision.
Trot Canter Gallop
VELOCITY
Figure 10: A graphical representation of cycling through the OODA from slow to high
velocities. A rough guide to interpret the above in real world terms would be as follows.
Performing a secondary task, such as tuning the car radio, while driving through moderate
traffic at the following speeds:
Trot: 30 mph
Canter: 60 mph
Gallop: 90 mph
In this example, two OODA cycles – one for the primary task (tracking the car on the road) and
another for the secondary task (tuning the radio) – are interlaced. And the velocities with which
the human agent cycles through them will be directly proportional to the driving speed.
In the aforesaid circumstances, cognitive processing is usually short-circuited because the

primitive emotional system gains the upper hand [29]. Due to this, the human agent’s perception
of the world and the priorities of the moment change. The high velocity action that manifest in
this setting is best described the words of Robert Levenson who conducts research in the
affective sciences:
Clearly there are times when action is more appropriate than deliberation, when responding
is more appropriate than considering, when doing is more important than planning [32].
The HVHF laws as the name implies address human factors that are pertinent at high velocities
in the context of human-machine interaction.
DHF-KFM-1 36
4.4.1.1 First Law of HVHF: the Law of Relevance
The human-machine interface (HMI) should aid the human agent to sense, perceive and lock-in
on relevant cues (data\information) and make irrelevant cues, irrelevant.
Illustrations for the first law of HVHF

A digital display of the police car, when engaged in a high-speed pursuit, could morph as
follows:
a) The electronic digital speedometer could [dynamically] enlarge in size and occupy the
entire display
b) The above would be facilitated by occupying the digital real estate, previously occupied
by other digital gauges such as engine temperature, engine RPM, fuel gauge etc.,
which have now become irrelevant to the current context (high speed pursuit).
4.4.1.2 Second Law of HVHF: the Law of Acceptance [of Relevance]

A HMI shall NOT aid or abet the agent from going into total lock-down (cognitive\visual
tunneling) at the expense of becoming immune to relevant signals or all together missing newly
emerging and relevant cues in the environment.
Illustrations for the second law of HVHF

a) An interface should not overwhelm the senses and\or cognitive resources of the human
agent to the extent that he becomes oblivious to the immediate, personal and local
environment.
b) An interface should be adaptive to the context and workload of the human agent. For
example, in a covert operating situation (context) and when the sniper (human agent) has
locked-in on a target in a dynamic environment (high workload: moving target in a
crowded field of innocent civilians), the interface should adapt in that it should suppress
all alerts that are neither relevant to the current context nor urgent to the situation on
hand.
4.4.1.3 Third Law of HVHF: the Law of Transparence

An HMI shall not become a barrier to information that could and should be sensed directly from
the immediate environment.
Illustrations for the third law of HVHF

a) Poorly designed fire fighter helmet-hoods, monocular Helmet Mounted Displays
(HMDs) or night vision goggles may restrict peripheral vision and\or introduce
binocular rivalry (in the case of monocular HMDs), and thus, may become a barrier
rather than an aid during tactical operations.
b) Heads-up Displays (HuDs) should not become opaque barriers on the windscreen of
a vehicle and occlude information that could be gleaned directly in the immediate
environment. Nor should they pose visual challenges (ocular motor) by requiring
significant and rapid changes in focal length.
c) Do not present information that can be sensed and perceived directly in the
immediate environment on the display. Only relevant information that is beyond the
DHF-KFM-1 37
reach & capabilities of the human senses -- in terms of sensation threshold,
amplification and resolution – should be presented.
4.4.1.4 Fourth Law of HVHF: the Law of Clairvoyance

The HMI should assist the agent in imagining the future state of the world for a given course of
action, or for an event that is already unfolding in real time.
Illustrations for the fourth law of HVHF

a) Use technology to provide intelligence of various kinds (listed below), so that the
agent can build a mental model of the current situation and to predict possible future
states. This process – as rapid as it may be – should facilitate the agent mentally,
simulate the possible courses of action and assist him in choosing the most successful
course of action.
Types of intelligence that technology should provide to the human agent (either on
demand or a need to know basis):
i. On the scene intelligence (e.g., nature of conflict21; number of people
involved, their disposition [Hostage? Injured? Fugitive?], their capabilities
[weapon? medical?], etc.
ii. Technical intelligence (e.g., satellite imagery, maps & route information,
scanning sensors – for beyond human sensory range sensing)
iii. Tactical intelligence (e.g., number of officers involved and their capabilities;
plan of actions [plan A, B…]; intra and inter agency command, coordination
and control issues pertaining; use of stealth – i.e., ability to suppress one’s
own signal when employing elements of surprise)
b) Use technology to predict the dynamics and future states of objects and people
already in motion. For example, if an officer has requested a back-up – and has been
dispatched – the interface should provide on the expected time of arrival at the
destination; or in the event the officer who made the request is in motion, then, the
time and place [in space] of intersection. In the case of a fleeing target, based on road
conditions, traffic patterns, etc., information may be provided to the officer in pursuit
regarding the time and place of probable interdiction with the target.
c) The above should not come with a cost: obscuring information that is important in the
local, personal and immediate context.
4.4.1.5 Fifth Law of HVHF: the Law of Absoluteness

The HMI shall provide instant access to vital functions that need to be accessed in a split second
by providing dedicated physical and tactile controls – including rapid cognition of relevant
information – with a one-to-one mapping to the specific element that it would control.
Corollaries:
21
All life could be viewed as a pattern of conflict as it involves a contint towards survival, sustenance, and conquest
of an adversary or overcoming an adversarial situation. (a state that is not in equilibrium). In the law enforcement
perspective, this could take on many forms: officer vs. perpetrator; order vs. disorder; safety vs. danger; health vs.
injury.
DHF-KFM-1 38
- Multi-sequence actions such as navigating through menus should be abhorred.
- In the operational sense, interactions with the interface should neither require deliberate
thought nor fishing in space. (e.g., through a large array of controls to make contact &
locate). That is, the designer should harness the kinesthetic memory of the human
muscular system and make it independent of visual guidance to the extent possible.
- There are occasions when it becomes necessary to rapidly comprehend information with
rough approximations rather than detailed information with a higher precision or
resolution. For example, when the human agent is time constrained, a bar graph that
shows the amount of fuel left (coarse numerical resolution) might be superior to reading-
off a numerical value (e.g., 8.32 gal.) from a crowded display.
Illustrations for the fifth law of HVHF

a) Controls for sirens and lights in a police cruiser22 should have dedicated controls that
are physical in embodiment (not on a touch screen).
• The control should be mapped clearly – and dedicated -- to one function
(e.g., sirens only). They should not embody different functions in different
modes (e.g., soft keys, toggling mode key, etc.).
b) The critical controls should be likened to the trigger of a gun: speedy access, one-
touch actuation, and some protection against inadvertent activation (safety lock).
4.4.1.6 Sixth Law of HVHF: The Law of Intelligence

Technology should be smart and adaptive and offload the human based on situation, context, and
workload in a reliable manner. The agent should be “invited” back into the loop of action at
appropriate moments when decision-making becomes the prerogative of human intelligence and
not that of technology.
Corollary:
- The human agent should be able to override functions allocated to technology or override
decisions made by it at any time and at a moments notice (see Fifth Law on The Law of
Absoluteness).
Illustrations for the sixth law of HVHF

a) The adaptive cruise control in automobiles – the use of forward-looking RADAR to
monitor the speed and distance of the vehicle in front – to maintain a safe distance is an
example of technology alleviating the human agent’s workload.
b) If a police vehicle has to enter a “stealth” zone (not reveal itself), -- say, to interdict a
hostage taker through the “surprise” – after speeding through traffic, the sirens and\or
lights could be turned off.
22
The part of the interface addressed in this illustration is role-specific [to police cruisers]. The Law of Absoluteness
would also be applicable to the interface that is core-specific (core function: basic function of driving) to cars.
Examples for the latter: [dedicated & quick access controls] for the horn, emergency flasher, turn-light indicator,
brakes, etc.).
DHF-KFM-1 39
4.4.1.7 Seventh Law of HVHF: The Law of Reliance23
A solution, system or technology should be trustworthy and reliable almost to the point of being
treated with reverence.
Technology should never engender a mistrust or lack of confidence amongst its users due to the
“cry wolf” effect (false alarms), failure or by not consistently exceeding expectations (low signal
to noise ratio). Technology should thus have attributes that results in complete [110%]
confidence to successfully support action and [human-machine] interaction occurring at high
velocities. It behooves the designer to treat the components of mission critical systems as though
they are the only* available source of information [output] and the only course of action [input].
I
*obviously the rhetoric in this statement is used to impress the reader on the perceived and actual value of the
system elements to the user – and doesn’t suggest in anyway that design should deviate from good human factors
design principles such as providing redundancy or complementariness
Illustrations for the sixth law of HVHF
Example: a motion sensor mounted on a police car is unable to discriminate between the
movement of a tree branch and the approach of a person, thereby resulting in the disabling of the
sensor or the need to assess the probable value of a warning.
4.5 Action
The controls of the F-86 [fighter jet] were so responsive24…“that they seemed actuated by
thought.”
- An American fighter pilot [31].
The number of weapon systems that can be employed in battle varies inversely to the square of
the level of sophistication
- Col. Everest E. "Rich" Riccioni, USAF [32].
Actions are executed to change the status quo – as a one-off or as combined arms [series and\or
parallel25] actions – as a means to an end of accomplishing a larger goal. In other words, this
23
I am indebted to my colleague, Tim Bergin, for bringing this law to my attention.
24
The F-86 had high-powered and highly effective hydraulic controls, when compared to its [Korean war]
adversary, the MiG 15. This meant that while the MiG could do many individual actions – including turn, climb,
and accelerate – better than the F-86, the F-86 could transition from one action to another much more quickly than
the MiG 15 – a quintessential attribute [fast transients] to emerge victorious in a dogfight (see below).
Using this superiority, the American pilots developed a tactical approach that forced the MiG into a series of actions.
Each time the action changed, the F-86 gained a time advantage, because the F-86 pilot could see more quickly how
the situation had changed and he could also make his aircraft shift more quickly to a new action. With each change,
the MiG’s actions became more inappropriate, until they were so inappropriate that the MiG’s actions gave the F-86
pilot a good firing opportunity. Often, it appeared the MiG pilot realized what was happening to him and panicked,
which made the American pilot’s job all the easier.
25
Obtaining synergy through combining actions; Steering and accelerating [gas pedal] when driving
DHF-KFM-1 40
denotes the execution phase – action implementation – and not the [action] selection phase,
which is in the realm of decision making. The concept of “altering the status quo” implies
changes in multiple dimensions (physical, cognitive, positional, and informational.). Some
examples of this are listed below.
1. Physical: actions taken to overcome an adversary; pausing to recover from the energy
expended in a sprint; reaching out to access and activate a control; physical locomotion of
self, cohort or unmanned vehicle from one location to another.
2. Cognitive: manipulating, storing or recalling information to create a mental model or
update situation awareness
3. Informational: gleaning information from the environment or HMI, which might involve
transmit, receive, query, among others.
4. Systemic: action to change the status of a system such as on\off, encrypt, scan, auto
cruise, etc.
Mission critical domains, such as law enforcement, will require special considerations whereby
an action [execution] needs to be perceived as an extension of one’s thought (see quote of the F-
86 fighter pilot at the beginning of this section). Particularly, to accommodate high velocity
interactions that would require accommodating temporal and emotional stressors.
To accomplish the above – in addition to practicing all good human factors design principles –
their design & interaction philosophies should be motivated by the following:
1. Identify task-related actions that must – or are likely to – occur at high volumes
(frequently) and\or high velocities (e.g., applying brakes in an automobile, changing
channels or volume in a radio, etc.).
a. Next, consider the gamut of physical, mental and environmental circumstances in
which the actions may occur (e.g., while running, under extreme emotional stress,
in darkness, etc.)
b. Given this information identify the best means for a system or widget to accept
commands from the human agent (via speech, touch, physical manipulation,
bodily movement or posture)
c. Identify the ideal – or default – method for interaction; and if appropriate provide
more than one means of interaction ensuring that it neither clutters the interface
nor confuses the user
2. The important points and surfaces of interaction – e.g., microphone port or a knob –
should be unambiguously presented (not lost in clutter). Furthermore, they should
amplify their image in the mind of the user by providing unique visual, tactile, and
auditory signatures.
3. [mission] critical controls (e.g., emergency buttons, siren & lights control, etc.), in
addition to practicing the above suggested design attributes, should harness the
proprioceptive26 (muscle memory) capabilities of the human sensory system. In other
words, they shouldn’t require visual guidance to locate, access or activate them. Thus
26
Proprioception is the sense of the relative position of neighboring parts of the body. For instance, one could close
one’s eyes and still touch the knee or nose because the proprioceptive sense makes it possible. In the strictest sense,
the proprioceptive ability applies to sensations arising within the body. However, this concept is used as a metaphor
to items that might be worn on the body (eye glasses, blue tooth headset, etc.) or for control elements in the
immediate and intimate work environment (cockpit of a car that is used everyday).
DHF-KFM-1 41
the placement of controls – either on the body (e.g., potato mic or belt-clip worn gadget)
or external to the body (e.g., cockpit) – should exploit the availability of well defined
anatomical sites and try to build a relationship with them. The brake and gas pedal in a
car are good examples that harness the proprioceptive capabilities of the body.
4. Controls should prevent wasted effort, especially in mission critical domains, where time
is precious. For example, why should a user under temporal stress even bother keying-in
his PTT when he is out of network coverage, and then be rudely jolted with a bad bonk?
The PTT button itself could take on a different color or express a different feel based on
signal strength.
4.6 OODA: Summarized

In the preceding sections, the various elements of the OODA cycle were analyzed in-depth in the
law enforcement context. If one were to take a simple birds eye view of the OODA cycle, and
“fish” for a functional perspective (hidden message), it would simply translate to accuracy and
speed.
In simple terms, the key mappings of the OODA can be reduced as follows:
1) Orientation Phase: Observe & Orient = Accurate & fast

2) Action Phase: Decide & Act = fast & accurate
Note: Accuracy and speed are vital in both 1 & 2 but to different degrees. But if one were to
force rank-order them, accuracy would trump speed in the orientation phase and speed would
trump accuracy in the action phase. This is becuase accurate understanding of the situation is
essential to formulate the correct response – and once the situation is comprehended, the
completion of the OODA cycle through the action phase is simply a matter of time.
The design of systems and widgets in the broader sense should provide relevant and critical
pieces of information so that the agent can develop an accurate orientation of his environment,
including the system status (e.g., availability of network signal). Next, it should make all the
relevant and critical control elements so that the agent can activate them, almost by thought (very
fast, without any impediments caused by clutter or ambiguity).
DHF-KFM-1 42
5.0 Epilogue
This tract developed a human factors platform – with the express intent of presenting it as a
launch pad for strategic thinkers who wish to innovate with the human at the epicenter of system
solutions. In other words, to engender innovation by encouraging the designer to take on the role
of a tactician and not that of a technician. The means to this end was the psychobehavioral
portrait, which used knowledge, derived from a variety of subjects, including ethology,
psychology, maneuver warfare, jet fighters, among others.
The ideas presented here will always be incomplete because new knowledge will displace
current thinking in due course. Furthermore, “uncertainty” itself is intrinsic to the domain of law
enforcement as new challenges arise everyday from within and without. Thus, this discourse is
more in the realm of a working doctrine and should in no way be allowed to transmute into
dogma with prescriptions for every situation. It is simply a crucible to foment and ferment new
ways of thinking for both old and new problems.
DHF-KFM-1 43
DHF-KFM-1 44
6.0 Bibliography
1. Joint Chiefs of Staff. (1997). Concept for Joint Operations. Washington: DOD, May 1997.
2. McNamara, J.D. (2006). 50 Shots. Wall Street Journal. Nov. 29, 2006, Op-Ed page.
3. MacLean P.D. (1993). Cerebral evolution of emotion. In M. Lewis, J.M. Haviland (eds).
Handbook of Emotions. New York: Guilford.
4. MacLean, P.D. (1990). The Triune Brain in Evolution: Role of Paleocerebral Functions.
New York, NY.: Plenum Press
5. Gilbert, S.J. (2006). Manly Men, Oil Platforms, and Breaking Stereotypes (Interview with
Dr. Robin Ely). Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge for Business Leaders.
Available online at http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5515.html
6. Grossman, D. (1996). On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and
Society. Boston, MA: Back Bay Books.
7. Moore, G.M. & Galloway, J.L. (1992). We were Soldiers Once...And Young: Ia Drang--The
Battle That Changed The War In Vietnam. New York, N.Y.: Random House.
8. Hammond, G.T. (2001). The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security. Washington,
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
9. Defense and the National Interest. Boyd and Military Strategy. Available online at:
http://www.d-n-i.net/second_level/boyd_military.htm
10. Coram, R. (2002). Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War. New York: Little,
Brown.
11. Easterbrook, J.A. (1959). The Effect of Emotion on Cue Utilization and the Organization of
Behavior. Psychological Review. Vol 66, No. 3.
12. Most, S.B., Chun, M.M., Widders, D.M., Zald, D.H. (2005). Attentional rubbernecking:
Involuntary attention to emotionally negative pictures induces blindness for targets.
Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. Vol 12 (4).
13. Öhman, A., Flykt, A. and Esteves, F. (2001). Emotion Drives Attention: Detecting the Snake
in the Grass. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General Vol. 136, No. 3, 466-478.
14. Driver, J. & Spence, C. (2004). Crossmodal Spatial Attention: Evidence from Human
Performance. In C. Spence & J. Driver (Eds.). Crossmodal Space and Cross Attention.
Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press.
15. Klinger, D. (2004). Into the Kill Zone: A Cop's Eye View of Deadly Force. San Francisco,
CA: Jossey-Bass
DHF-KFM-1 45
16. Endsley, M.R. (1995). Toward a Theory of Situation Awareness in Dynamic Systems.
Human Factors 37 (1). pp. 32-64.
17. Endsley, M.R. (1999). Situation Awareness and Human Error: Designing to Support Human
Performance. Proceedings of the High Consequence Systems Surety Conference,
Albuquerque, NM.
18. Frijda, N.H. (1986). The Emotions. New York: Cambridge University Press.
19. Grunow, C.D. (2006). Advising Iraqis: Building the Iraqi Army. Military Review. July-
August 2006.
20. Kramer, R.R. (1965). Some effects of stress on rifle firing, unclassified abstract of classified
paper presented to the 11th Annual US Army Human Factors Research and Development
Conference.
21. Fick, N. (2005). One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer. Boston, MA: Houghton
Miflin Company.
22. Larsen, R.J. (2004). “Emotion and Cognition: The Case of Automatic Vigilance,”
Psychological Science Agenda 18
23. Watson, P. (1978). War on the Mind: The Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology. New
York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers.
24. Adams, T.K. (2001-2). Future Warfare and the Decline of Human Decision Making.
Parameters, Winter 2001-02, pp. 57-71.
25. Lind, W.S. (1985). Maneuver Warfare Handbook. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
26. Klein, G. (1999). Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions. Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press.
27. Johnston, J.G., Driskell, J.E., and E. Salas, Vigilant and Hypervigilant Decisionmaking,
Journal of Applied Psychology (1997): 82.
28. Boyer, P.J. (2006) Downfall: How Donald Rumsfeld reformed the army and lost Iraq. New
Yorker, Nov. 20, 2006.
29. Wilcox, R.K. (2004).Wings of Fury: From Vietnam to the Gulf War -- The Astonishing, True
Stories of America's Elite Fighter Pilots. New York, N.Y.: Pocket Star Books
30. Walker, B. (1986). Fighting Jets. Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books.
31. Stevenson, J.P. (1993). The Pentagon Paradox: The Development of the F-18 Hornet.
Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.
DHF-KFM-1 46
32. Levenson , R .W. (1994). Human emotions: A functional view. In P. Ekman & R .J.
Davidson (Eds.), The nature of emotion: Fundamental questions (pp. 123-126). New York :
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During Insurgency. Parameters.
DHF-KFM-1 47

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A Discourse on Law Enforcement

High Velocity Human Factors

Displays from Ethology

(Design Human Factors-Knowledge Field Manual-1)

(Design Human Factors-Knowledge Field Manual-1)

a. Prologue: Ethological antecedents: territoriality, patrol behaviors and law enforcement

2.1 Signature Displays

2.2 Challenge Displays

Figure 1b: Signature & challenge displays: law enforcement officers

2.2.2 Fight or Flight?

2.3 Appeasement Displays

2.4 Bonding Displays

3.1 Performance Factors: calm, alert, vigilant, restrained or

This psychobehavioral portrait expressly addresses issues pertaining to human performance in

Figure 5: OODA Loop

3.2.1 Sensory-Perceptual Systems

3.2.2.1 Attention as a Spotlight

The psychobehavioral precepts (change in attention and sensory-perceptual systems) discussed in

3.2.3 Decision and Action

3.2.3.1 Situation Awareness

Table 1: SA Error Taxonomy [17]

Level 1: Failure to correctly perceive information

Level 2: Failure to correctly integrate or comprehend information

Level 3: Failure to project future actions or state of the system

3.2.4 X-treme Arousal

1) The response competition hypothesis

The “death blossom” is an example of a strongly motivated response provoked by a given

3) The overflow hypothesis

4) The disorganization hypothesis

5) The regression hypothesis

4.1 The Language of Design

4.2.2 Design Deliberations on Sensory-Perceptuals

channel & Vital system elements

sirens & lights, RADAR control,

data entry, system settings (e.g.,

Figure 6: Pyramid of vitalities, plots the relationship between decreasing\increasing sensory-

4.2.2.2 Higher order design directions

4.2.3 Reflexive Reactions

4.2.3.1.2 Operant Conditioning

4.3 Orientation Solutions

4.3.2 Pattern Recognition

Unnecessary information (includes irrelevant information):

4.3.3 Mission Space Awareness (MSA)

The three ‘relationships’ are elaborated below with examples:

Mission space awareness itself can be classified into three types:

2 Loc MSA Glob MSA:

Global Mission Space Awareness (Glob MSA)

Local Mission Space Awareness (Loc MSA)

The understanding of Loc MSA is furthered with more examples below.

Glocal Mission Space Awareness

Trot Canter Gallop

In the aforesaid circumstances, cognitive processing is usually short-circuited because the

Illustrations for the first law of HVHF

4.4.1.2 Second Law of HVHF: the Law of Acceptance [of Relevance]

Illustrations for the second law of HVHF

4.4.1.3 Third Law of HVHF: the Law of Transparence

Illustrations for the third law of HVHF