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On operator effectiveness: the role of expertise and familiarity of environment on the detection of deviant behaviour

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Abstract

This paper examines factors contributing to the effectiveness of camera operators in urban camera surveillance. The use of camera surveillance has taken an enormous flight in the past decades. Despite this increase, its effectiveness is strongly debated. One reason for the disputed effectiveness may be that an understanding of how to use camera surveillance, including elements contributing to the effectiveness of camera operators, has not kept track with technological developments. This paper focuses on the role of expertise and familiarity with the environment on the effectiveness of camera operators to detect offenders in video footage from Rotterdam City Surveillance in the Netherlands. Results show no effect of expertise, but do show that familiarity with the location contributes to operator effectiveness and that camera operators seem to use different criteria for detecting and selecting suspects depending on the familiarity with the location. These results contribute to our understanding of operator effectiveness and offer guidelines for the training of camera operators. Implications are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Here, speed of selection is not the same as the order in which suspects were pointed and selected. Speed was measured as the time between presenting the still and the selection of the next suspicious individual. Also note that because we use the speed of responses, we can only analyse hits and false alarms: correct and false rejections require inputs that were inherently not given.

  2. We found no difference in expertise between participants with or without any false alarms, F < 1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. TNO, Kampweg 1, P.O. Box 23, 3769 ZG, Soesterberg, The Netherlands

    Remco Wijn, Helma van den Berg & Maaike Lousberg

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  1. Remco Wijn
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  2. Helma van den Berg
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  3. Maaike Lousberg
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Correspondence to Remco Wijn.

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Wijn, R., van den Berg, H. & Lousberg, M. On operator effectiveness: the role of expertise and familiarity of environment on the detection of deviant behaviour. Pers Ubiquit Comput 17, 35–42 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-011-0480-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-011-0480-3

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