Watching for People and Actions

Abstract

Abstract A total of 24 police officers and 156 civilians were shown a film of a street scene for 4, 2 or 1 hr. They had to watch for people and actions which had been inserted into the film deliberately. Photographs of the wanted people were mounted beneath the screen. In one condition a short colour film of each wanted person was shown before the main film. Three people were detected reliably more often when they were the only throe people to be watched for, than when they were among 12 people to be watched for. No advantage was gained by reducing the number from three to one. The three people were detected reliably less often when the film and photographs were in black and white than when the film was in colour, their photographs were in colour, and the film was proceded by a short colour film of each person. Stealing was detected reliably more often than the wanted person who did the stealing. Both people and actions were detected reliably more often when they were near the camera than when they were further away. Learning what to watch for masked any effects of fatigue which may have been present after 4 hr. The police officers reported reliably more alleged thefts than did the civilian observers. On the number of true detections of people and actions, there were no reliable differences between the police and the civilians, nor between groups of civilians of different ages and sex.