Pursuit Driver Training Improves Memory for Skill-Based Information

Police drivers must attend to information from multiple sensory modalities during a high-speed pursuit. This aises an important question: Does training facilitate the shifting of focus between visual and auditory modalities and the subsequent recall of information? The authors tested personnel from the London Metropolitan Police Service to see if various levels of driving training influenced memory recall during an attention-shifting task. Participants were presented standard and police-related memory items while simultaneously attending to distracters. Brain activity was measured to the presentation of the distracters to ensure participants are indeed paying attention to both tasks. The authors found that training did have a significant effect on memory for police-related items. The results are attributed to training because the experimental design ruled out concentration and natural ability as possible explanations.