SAN FRANCISCO — Dr. Henry Mahncke, CEO of Posit Science, which makes the brain training app BrainHQ, will address the 24th Annual Crisis Negotiations Conference of the National Tactical Officers Association, on Tuesday, October 29, 2024 in Chandler, Arizona.
Dr. Mahncke will discuss how brain health issues of the person-in-crisis can create obstacles to a successful negotiation, and how negotiators who understand these issues (and optimize their own brain performance) can guide negotiations to a successful conclusion.
“We now do considerable work with SWAT, law enforcement, and emergency response,” observed Dr. Mahncke. “Crisis negotiation draws on a large number of cognitive skills, which we’ve shown — across many studies and field trials — can be systematically improved. Those cognitive skills include attention, speed of processing, memory, and decision-making, but we’ve learned there are many others, including both general and momentary alertness, inhibitory response, emotional recognition, multiple object tracking, peripheral vision, initiation of movement recognition, divided attention, and rule switching.”
“Managing crisis negotiations is incredibly cognitively demanding,” Dr. Mahncke continued. “It demands mastery of divided attention and rule shifting, as you prioritize and re-prioritize continuously incoming information. It’s both art and science, and we are honored to be asked to present the latest neuroscience related to this field. Our goal is to help officers be relaxed and ready to address the crises with peak cognitive skills and abilities.”
During his two-hour workshop, Dr. Mahncke will share an overview of how certain cognitive abilities — shown to be systematically improvable — relate to crisis negotiation and management, including data from recent studies and field trials, learnings from interviews, findings regarding the impact of BrainHQ exercises on stress, anxiety, fatigue, confidence and control, as well as some hands-on time with BrainHQ. Conference registrants will have access to the cognitive exercises throughout the conference.
BrainHQ exercises have shown benefits in hundreds of studies. Such benefits include gains in cognition (attention, speed, memory, decision-making), in quality of life (depressive symptoms, confidence and control, health-related quality of life) and in real-world activities (health outcomes, balance, driving, workplace activities). BrainHQ is offered by leading health and Medicare Advantage plans, by leading medical centers, clinics, and communities, and by elite athletes and teams, special forces, the military, and other organizations focused on peak performance. Consumers can try a BrainHQ exercise for free daily at https://www.brainhq.com.