People who got shocked with a Taser had trouble with a test measuring short term memory.
A lot of scientific research has focused on what police Tasers physically do to the body, but little has looked at how they impact the way people think. Now, results from a new study out of Arizona State University suggest police officers should look more carefully at how quickly they question a suspect after a Taser deployment.
Michael White says one thing is clear: police officers should carry Tasers. "It reduces injuries among police and citizens," he said. "It de-escalates situations that could escalate into a use of deadly force."
White is a professor at Arizona State University. What's less clear is how Tasers impact the way our brains work. To that end, White designed an experiment where more than 100 people were divided into four groups.
One group got shocked with a Taser, while the other didn't. There's also the question of how physical exertion effects the way we think, so a third group was asked to reenact a scuffle with a police by punching a bag and then getting shocked, while the fourth group just punched the bag.
Then, everyone had to complete a battery of cognitive tests. "And we found that the people who received the Taser exposure experienced more significant declines than the people who just punched the bag," White said.
Overall, White said, the people in the two groups that got shocked with a Taser had trouble with a test measuring short term memory. After about an hour, cognitive levels in the those groups returned to normal.
"This does raise some concerns for individuals who have their Miranda rights read to them within this one hour window after arrest," White said. "Especially because, keep in mind, we documented this deficit in cognitive functioning with young, healthy, well-educated college students. And the people who are tased in the real world are much less healthy. They're not as young. They're not as well educated, they're more likely to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and they're more likely to be suffering from mental illness."
Going forward, White said the challenge for scientists is to try to better study how the brain responds to use of force, by using things like fMRI imaging to get a better picture of brain function after a Taser deployment.
The research was published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology.
