Improvement in the understanding of decision-making under pressure and the development of curriculum content

​The physiological arousal from stress has long been known to interfere with perception and memory at all levels and the body’s ability to deal with that threat. (Siddle, August 2004) (Honig, 2008). A number of studies have shown that the ability to take in information on the periphery of a high threat situation is reduced when dealing with a subject armed with a knife or a gun. (Janelle, 1999) (Williams V. &., 2007) None of this information is available centrally other than the personal research completed by individual officers around the country (Williams M. , 2014). Nor are there any recommended strategies to train officers in dealing with these effects. The aim of the research is to develop curriculum content and strategies to train AFOs in identifying and dealing with perceptual distortion during potentially life threatening incidents. This will be achieved by first understanding the theory of the cognitive psychology that underpins the bodies natural reactions to stress before developing experiments to test aspects pertinent to the training of AFOs.