Body camera footage leads to lower judgments of intent than dash camera footage

Broderick L. Turner; Eugene M. Caruso; Mike A. Dilich; Neal J. Roese

doi:10.1073/pnas.1805928116

Body camera footage leads to lower judgments of intent than dash camera footage

Broderick L. Turner^*, Eugene M. Caruso, Mike A. Dilich, Neal J. Roese

^*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

Police departments use body-worn cameras (body cams) and dashboard cameras (dash cams) to monitor the activity of police officers in the field. Video from these cameras informs review of police conduct in disputed circumstances, often with the goal of determining an officer’s intent. Eight experiments (N = 2,119) reveal that body cam video of an incident results in lower observer judgments of intentionality than dash cam video of the same incident, an effect documented with both scripted videos and real police videos. This effect was due, in part, to variation in the visual salience of the focal actor: the body cam wearer is typically less visually salient when depicted in body versus dash cam video, which corresponds with lower observer intentionality judgments. In showing how visual salience of the focal actor may introduce unique effects on observer judgment, this research establishes an empirical platform that may inform public policy regarding surveillance of police conduct.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	1201-1206
Number of pages	6
Journal	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume	116
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1805928116
State	Published - Jan 22 2019

Funding

We thank Chris Cannon, Benjamin Grant, Ankur Kapoor, Jun Youn Lee, Youngeun Lee, Yvonne Kumon, and Kendra Steele for acting in our videos; Joseph Malcolm Abruzzo (Kellogg Behavioral Laboratory) for assistance in data collection; the field research staff at the Center for Decision Research (The University of Chicago); Aaron Thomas and Chief Bruce Lewis for their insights; and James Olson and Samantha Stewart for feedback on earlier manuscript drafts.

Keywords

Attribution
Body camera
Dash camera
Intention
Visual salience

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General

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10.1073/pnas.1805928116

Cite this

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abstract = "Police departments use body-worn cameras (body cams) and dashboard cameras (dash cams) to monitor the activity of police officers in the field. Video from these cameras informs review of police conduct in disputed circumstances, often with the goal of determining an officer{\textquoteright}s intent. Eight experiments (N = 2,119) reveal that body cam video of an incident results in lower observer judgments of intentionality than dash cam video of the same incident, an effect documented with both scripted videos and real police videos. This effect was due, in part, to variation in the visual salience of the focal actor: the body cam wearer is typically less visually salient when depicted in body versus dash cam video, which corresponds with lower observer intentionality judgments. In showing how visual salience of the focal actor may introduce unique effects on observer judgment, this research establishes an empirical platform that may inform public policy regarding surveillance of police conduct.",

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Body camera footage leads to lower judgments of intent than dash camera footage

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