Page 6 - TPA Journal May June 2022

Watching Videos: Where to Focus

Despite what youʼve been told most of your life, practice does not make perfect; practice

makes permanent. With that in mind, consider the practice most citizens have as it relates to watch-
ing videos. The conditioning starts early in life: in any movie, television show, or play, we watch the

star, the protagonist, the main character. Most of us remember Saturday morning cartoons from

childhood. When the Bugs Bunny show came on, we focused on Bugs Bunny, not the supporting

characters. It was the same with Tom & Jerry — the bulldog wasnʼt the star. This practice of training
our brains continues through adulthood; after all, the term used on Broadway is “headliner.”

Audiences are conditioned to watch and focus their attention on the star of the play. It continues

today in movies, where the biggest star is announced ahead of the release so that they, in essence,

become the reason to buy a ticket. Our brains have been taught to focus on the person we are told
to watch.

This unconscious habit is often exacerbated by an issue known as “inattentional blindness.”

Inattentional blindness has been demonstrated in many studies, the most well-

known being the “Invisible Gorilla Experiment,” conducted in 1999. In the abstract for their article,
Dr. Daniel Simmons and Dr. Christopher Chablis state that “…without attention, we may not even

perceive objects (ʻinattentional blindnessʼ). Taken together, these findings suggest that we perceive

and remember only those objects and details that receive focused attention.” Drs.
Chablis and Simmons used the experiment to demonstrate the extent to which perception is affected

by where attention is focused.

How do these two concepts work together to affect our review and interpretation of use of

force videos? Think about the terminology we use: “police body-worn camera,” or “police dash-

cam.” Whom are we subconsciously directing viewers to focus on (i.e., directed attention) when
that nomenclature is used? The psychology behind our focus has been developed over the course

of a lifetime, and as stated previously, practice makes permanent.

The media can make this worse by the way the material is presented. One of the issues is

often the lack of expertise on the part of journalists when they report on incidents. Though no ill-will
may be intended, reportersʼ lack of training or understanding in use of force law and police tactics

can be damaging. A second issue is that regardless of the content of the video, the way in which it

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