Changes in Lifeguards’ Hazard Detection and Eye Movements with Experience: Is One Season Enough?

International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education Volume 13 Number 1 Article 6 11-2-2020 Changes in Lifeguards’ Hazard Detection and Eye Movements with Experience: Is One Season Enough? Jennifer Smith University of Chichester, Geoff Long University of Portsmouth, Peter Dawes Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Oliver Runswick University of Chichester, Michael J. Tipton University of Portsmouth, England, Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/ijare Part of the Exercise Science Commons, Health and Physical Education Commons, Public Health Commons, Sports Sciences Commons, and the Tourism and Travel Commons Recommended Citation Smith, Jennifer; Long, Geoff; Dawes, Peter; Runswick, Oliver; and Tipton, Michael J. (2020) "Changes in Lifeguards’ Hazard Detection and Eye Movements with Experience: Is One Season Enough?," International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education: Vol. 13 : No. 1 , Article 6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25035/ijare.13.01.06 Available at: https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/ijare/vol13/iss1/6 This Research Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at ScholarWorks@BGSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@BGSU. Smith et al.: Changes in Lifeguards’ Hazard Detection and Eye Movements Abstract Surveillance is key to the lifesaving capability of lifeguards. Experienced personnel consistently display enhanced hazard detection capabilities compared to less experienced counterparts. However, the mechanisms which underpin this effect and the time it takes to develop these skills are not understood. We hypothesized that, after one season of experience, the number of hazards detected by, and eye movements of, less experienced lifeguards (LEL) would more closely approximate experienced lifeguards (EL). The LEL watched ‘beach scene’ videos at the beginning and end of their first season. The number of hazards detected and eye-movement data were collected and compared to the EL group. The LEL perceived fewer hazards than EL and did not increase over the season. There was no difference in eye-movements between groups. Findings suggest one season is not enough for lifeguards to develop enhanced hazard detection skills and skill level differences are not underpinned by differences in gaze behavior. Keywords: Surveillance, hazard detection, lifeguards, eye movements. Practitioner Summary Surveillance is the primary task for lifeguards, yet training mainly focuses on first aid and rescue. We show working for one season does not allow newly qualified lifeguards to enhance their hazard detection skills to the levels of experienced lifeguards and number of fixations and fixation duration do not underpin this expertise. Background Surveillance is a critical component in many occupations such as lifeguarding (Lanagan-Leitzel, 2012; Lanagan-Leitzel & Moore, 2010; Page et al., 2011a), bridge watch keeping (King, 2000), and search and rescue (Cooper, 2005). In these demanding occupations personnel are required to search dynamic scenes for targets which indicate a hazard is occurring or may be about to occur. A hazard is defined as anything which may cause harm (HSE, 2017). Although there are similarities in the cognitive abilities and skills underpinning these occupations (e.g., perceiving relevant cues, processing relevant cues, decision making) there are differences in the dynamic scenes each set of personnel work with in terms of display complexity, prevalence of targets, and viewing angles. Long Term Working Memory theory (LTWM; Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995) conceptualizes expertise development and suggests task specific perceptual-cognitive processes are needed for performance development. An extensive body of research has examined the role experience plays in developing these processes (e.g. Reingold & Sheridan, 2011). Generally, these studies have found that increasing experience within a given task improves performance and these improvements can be underpinned by changes in perceptual-cognitive processes such as visual search (Ward et al., 2002). 1 Published by ScholarWorks@BGSU, 2020 1 International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education, Vol. 13, No. 1 [2020], Art. 6 In hazard perception tasks, experts have generally been shown to detect more hazards than novices (Koller, Drury, & Schwaninger, 2009; Page et al., 2011a; Wood et al., 2013; Wood et al., 2014) but there are contrasting findings when investigating less extreme skill level differences. Page et al. (2011a) found experienced beach lifeguards were 4.9 times more likely than less experienced lifeguards to detect a simulated person drowning. In contrast, Lanagan-Leitzel and Moore (2010) found that although lifeguards detected a greater percentage of the critical events than naïve participants, the hazard detection rate was not different compared to briefly trained participants. A later study found experienced instructors identified significantly more critical events than certified lifeguards, and non-lifeguards did not differ significantly from the certified lifeguards in terms of number of events detected (Lanagan-Leitzel, 2012). Outcome-based research has produced inconsistent findings in hazard detection tasks and there has been a paucity of process-based research to offer explanations for these findings. Therefore, there is a need to investigate the mechanisms which mediate performance differences and when these develop. There are several explanations of how perceptual expertise develops. It has been proposed that experts have decreased cognitive demands and can therefore free up resources for higher order processes (Fitts & Possner, 1967; Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977). Experts may also develop more refined visual search patterns based on their advanced knowledge of what is relevant. These explanations are supported by the predictions of Long-Term Working Memory theory (LTWM; Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995), which suggest experts have extended capacity for information processing due to the acquisition of retrieval structures that allow them to rapidly encode information in long-term memory and efficiently access it for later task operations. Such rapid encoding and retrieval should result in shorter fixation durations and enhanced hazard detection. Therefore, LTWM is a useful perspective to investigate the mechanisms underpinning skill level differences. Empirical studies have investigated whether visual search is a discriminator of expertise in hazard detection but have produced conflicting results. Indeed, experts have been shown to produce: fewer fixations (Manning et al., 2006), fewer fixations on preferred locations (Krupinski et al., 2006), shorter fixation durations (Krupinski et al., 2006), and more fixations on target locations (Wilson et al., 2010; 2011) relative to novices. Others have found a range of significant and non-significant (...truncated)