It was quiet in the fire station and Ric Jorge encountered something strange. The only light in the supervisor’s office was from the captain’s laptop. The captain was intently looking at the computer screen, moving his lips but not making a sound. Naturally, Ric gathered the rest of the crew to view this phenomenon. When the murmuring got loud enough, the captain told them to knock it off.
The captain was using his downtime to watch pre-arrival videos from STATter911 to practice making initial arrival reports. Ric uses this in his Tactical Resiliency Training as an example of combining Visualization and Recognized Primed Decision (RPD) in improving performance.
In 1984 the Russians realized that Olympic athletes who mentally rehearsed their sport experienced a positive impact on their performance. In the 1990s a researcher showed that just five minutes of mental visualization, versus five minutes of basic tasks, yielded a significant difference in overall performance. Researchers showed that this difference applied to both experienced professionals and novices.
Another researcher showed that mere mental rehearsal triggered responses from the autonomic nervous system, which in turn improved athletic performance. Dr. Patrick Cohn (PeaksSports.com) explains how to use visualization in this 4:23 minute YouTube video (click here).
Cognitive psychologist Gary Klein, Ph.D. studied command-and-control decision making. While much of the research was funded by the Army, the first group he looked at were firefighters. Fireground commanders did not use a decision tree framework. They were acting based on prior experience. This experience was identified as Recognized Primed Decision (RPD) model.
Dr. Klein describes the firefighter research and RPD in this 8:23 minute YouTube interview.
Let me watch my “shows”
Viewing the pre-arrival videos provides visual input in developing mental simulations and mental models within your personal decision database. I still remember the jolt I got the first time I watched a video of a magnesium scrap fire. I had been teaching Haz-Mat at the college for a while and shared the textbook description of the unique smoke magnesium makes. Watching initial suppression efforts at a large magnesium scrap fire in an industrial site established a vivid visual cue for me that was lacking when reading the textbook.
Watching a pre-arrival video to practice your initial size-up and arrival radio reports may be an excellent investment of your time. Using your incident management forms or processes will make it more memorable, creating muscle and mental memories.
Ric Jorge concludes his presentation with a recording of his captain arriving at a structure fire with occupants trapped. You can hear the chaos surrounding the officer as initial size up is completed and orders are issued. The radio transmissions were clear, concise, calm and complete.
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Saint Clair, Erica (no date) “Visualization: The Simple Tool For Even Greater Athletic Success” Accessed 5/15/2018 from https://breakingmuscle.com
Clarey, Christopher (2014 February 22) “Olympians Use Imagery as Mental Training” The New York Times Accessed 5/14/2018 from https://www.nytimes.com (paywall)
Klein, Gary A.; Orasanu, J.; Calderwood, R. and Zsambok, C. E. (1993) Decision Making in Action: Models and Methods. Norwood NJ: Ablex
A good book about RPD:
Van Horne, Patrick, and Riley, Jason A. (2014) Left of Bang: How The Marine Corps’ Combat Hunter Program Can Save Your Life. New York: Black Irish Entertainment LLC.