When Does a “Shock Target” Lose Its Value? Target Repetition Consequences for Challenging Lethal Force Stimuli

Lethal force training incorporates a wide variety of methods to prepare an individual for a potential use of force encounter. Although many efforts aim to increase realism through stress, there is a critical aspect of lethal force training that does not often receive careful attention or intervention: target design. Realistic targets are essential to simulating a threat assessment that could prompt use of lethal force, making the targets themselves critical to training initiatives. Among various target types, there is a specialized variety known as “shock targets.” These variants have an intentionally complex or provocative design intended to challenge the shooter by making shoot/don’t shoot decisions particularly difficult. We explored the limitations of repeatedly using these targets. Experiment 1 compared two repeated target types among novel threats, including a clearly threatening individual (clear threat) and a seemingly approachable individual attempting to conceal a pointed weapon (shock target). Participants demonstrated robust learning effects for the shock target throughout the experiment. More importantly, the target lost most of its shock value by the third presentation, indicating a valuable but limited use for this target type. In experiment 2, we reduced contextual information to a simple drawpoint, and participants responded as quickly to the obscured threat as if it were clearly presented. These combined results indicate that target repetition is problematic for realistic threat assessments, and trainees will not benefit from repeated use of shock targets.