Effect of point-of-view on interpretation of body-worn camera footage: A psychophysiological investigation of cognitive processing and evaluation of culpability

Wenqing Zhao (Ph.D. student), Lanlan Zhang (Ph.D. student), Anne Perera (Ph.D. student), Karen Andrea Robayo Sanchez (Ph.D. student), Giselle Romero-Castro, Brittany Shivers (Ph.D. student), Loredonna Fiore,Solyee Kim,Harry Yan, Rachel Bailey, Bartosz Wojdynski, and Glenna Read, “Effect of point-of-view on interpretation of body-worn camera footage: A psychophysiological investigation of cognitive processing and evaluation of culpability,” extended abstract accepted for presentation at the International Communication Association Conference, June, Denver.

Abstract: Body-worn cameras (BWC), small cameras worn on the body that record and provide footage of police encounters from a first-person point of view (POV), are used by an increasing number of police agencies around the United States (Chapman, 2018). Footage from BWCs can enhance transparency of law enforcement to improve police-citizen relations (e.g., White House, 2014; BJA, 2015). Despite the benefits of BWC to both police and citizens, recent research indicates that viewers interpret BWC footage heterogeneously in ways that can facilitate biased outcomes (Bailey et al., 2021; Salerno & Sanchez, 2020; Wilson et al., 2017). In this study, we (1) test if instructions that promote awareness of these potential biasing effects can reduce bias in BWC footage interpretation and (2) examine implicit, automatic processes underlying reception of both the videos over time and the instructions using psychophysiological measures and eye-tracking.Joshua Cloudy, “Online Radicalization: Identifying