Autopilot: Is it the same for everybody?

[Erik]

The competition vs. street thread got me wondering about this question. The major point of contention in that thread/threads of that sort seems to be whether or not people will do on "autopilot" what they have ingrained as a habit. Some say yes, some say no. On the basis of my own experience, I would say that people were very likely to do so. Personally, I find myself doing this type of thing routinely. A good example that many should have experience with is changing cars. When I first get into a new car, I find myself reaching for things in the wrong place, braking awkwardly, etc., all until I've adjusted to the new car. Same thing with changes around the house. Move something I use frequently and I will inevitably reach for it where it used to be for a bit, until I get used to the change. I've also observed this in my routine gun handling tasks (loading and unloading, checking status, etc.) where I go through the same motions in the same way every time without having to think about it. For me, it is intuitively obvious that this same pattern would apply in shooting incidents. The fact that this is not so obvious to others leads me to wonder, do different people have different experiences of autopilot? Are some people less prone to it than others? I'd be interested in what people think/have observed.

[John Hearne]

I hate to use weasel words but, it depends.

I've been seriously studying this for several years now. One of my conclusions is that these things matter most (in rough order):

1) How recently the desired solution was last practiced
2) How many times has the person had to perform in the stress.
3) How much practice was done aka how well developed are the motor programs.

If you take an unexperienced person and put them in a life and death situation, they will tend to do the "most recent likely solution." If their "most recent likely solution" is useful they begin to develop faith in the training and preparation. It seems to take the typical person 2-3 criticalincidents to develop in the subconscious, a trust of the training and preparation. Once you get beyond the third event, you see a lot more rational action than pure unthinking response.

The lack of familiarity in a new vehicle is an example of a lack of automaticity. When your mind gives the command "run the roll down window program" the program is not valid because the window switch is in a different place. Over time, the "roll the window down program" is refined and automaticty is developed that allows you to operate the new vehicle without conscious thought.

We need to distinguish between autopilot in routine matters and in life and death instances. If we take the example of flying an aircraft, the pilot with the most hours will fly the plane better. However, when a crisis emerges, the pilot (even an inexperienced one) with the most recent training/practice will be better able to execute the life saving skills.

The problem with autopilot is that people don't do the work to develop the automaticity you must have to perform well under stress. The work is both the number of repetitions and how recently they were performed.

The other consideration to keep in mind is that some people are genetic freaks in how they handle stress. There are people who have an above average ability to remain rational when the world is going to pieces. There are probably some people who have a below average ability as well. This is why hiring properly for critical jobs is so crucial.

[Erik]

If I am following, you would say that whether and how people develop autopilot programs (automaticity) is essentially the same from person to person (setting aside the freakishly calm under stress)? Is that right?

[Mr_White]

John Hearne defines the specifics much better than I would. My answer to your question, especially with regard to autopilot being a point of contention in the other thread, is that it depends on whether they only practice for competition, or do other training that covers what competition does not, and that will be balanced against the demands of a specific incident. One incident may go right through the hole in someone's training, another may not find that hole.

[okie john]

I hate to use weasel words but, it depends.

I've been seriously studying this for several years now. One of my conclusions is that these things matter most (in rough order):

1) How recently the desired solution was last practiced
2) How many times has the person had to perform in the stress.
3) How much practice was done aka how well developed are the motor programs.

If you take an unexperienced person and put them in a life and death situation, they will tend to do the "most recent likely solution." If their "most recent likely solution" is useful they begin to develop faith in the training and preparation. It seems to take the typical person 2-3 criticalincidents to develop in the subconscious, a trust of the training and preparation. Once you get beyond the third event, you see a lot more rational action than pure unthinking response.

The lack of familiarity in a new vehicle is an example of a lack of automaticity. When your mind gives the command "run the roll down window program" the program is not valid because the window switch is in a different place. Over time, the "roll the window down program" is refined and automaticty is developed that allows you to operate the new vehicle without conscious thought.

We need to distinguish between autopilot in routine matters and in life and death instances. If we take the example of flying an aircraft, the pilot with the most hours will fly the plane better. However, when a crisis emerges, the pilot (even an inexperienced one) with the most recent training/practice will be better able to execute the life saving skills.

The problem with autopilot is that people don't do the work to develop the automaticity you must have to perform well under stress. The work is both the number of repetitions and how recently they were performed.

The other consideration to keep in mind is that some people are genetic freaks in how they handle stress. There are people who have an above average ability to remain rational when the world is going to pieces. There are probably some people who have a below average ability as well. This is why hiring properly for critical jobs is so crucial.

This squares with my experience.

In jump school, I practiced rolling up my parachute and stowing it in a kit bag before moving off of the Drop Zone hundreds of times. I don't remember exiting the door on my first jump, but I remember descending toward a creek while I was under canopy and being afraid of drowning if I were knocked unconscious by something I couldn't see under the water. The next thing I remember is arriving at the turn-in point soaking wet. The instructors had warned us of the dire fate that awaited anyone foolish enough to arrive with an improperly-stowed chute, so I decided to check my work. When I opened the bag, I found everything stowed in textbook fashion, even though to this day I don't remember doing it.

I agree that experience moves responses to from the spinal cord to the brain. In my case, I had the free will of a wind-up toy until I had made about a dozen jumps. One day, after I had 30-35 jumps under my belt, an extra loop of static line came out of the retainer bands. The light had already turned green and my stick was going out the door, which is, ahhm, motivating. But there I was with 5-6 feet of static line flapping at shoulder level in a 120-knot wind, which is bad because it can wrap around your arm or neck with harmful or fatal results. I don't remember thinking, "My static line is flapping around, which it should not be doing, and I should do something about it." It was more like, "That's bad. Fix it before you reach the door, but keep moving--you have time." My attention shifted from the task at hand to the conditions under which I had to perform it, which the lizard brain can't necessarily do.

Can't wait to see GJM weigh in on this one...


Okie John

[Erik]

The specific question I was wondering about, which I may not have phrased well, is whether some people are less susceptible to developing an autopilot-type program than others. That is, are some people more likely than others to (i) develop and "burn in" a set pattern of automated physical responses to specific repeated situations (e.g., the "roll down the window program" described by John Hearne) and (ii) revert to their programming under stress (or in any other situation that distracts attention). The question that seems to be getting answered is, what (or what determines) autopilot program will get played when stress kicks in. I think that is a really interesting question too, in fact, probably more interesting, and I don't want to discourage responses addressing it. But I'd also like to hear what people think about whether different people are more or less prone to developing that kind of programming in the first place.

These are great and really interesting responses, I think. Thanks.

[Kevin B.]

The question that seems to be getting answered is, what (or what determines) autopilot program will get played when stress kicks in. I think that is a really interesting question too, in fact, probably more interesting, and I don't want to discourage responses addressing it. But I'd also like to hear what people think about whether different people are more or less prone to developing that kind of programming in the first place.

I once had a fairly lengthy discussion with Ken Murray on this subject. Ken explained that behavior under stress was subject to the principles of primacy and recency. (paraphrasing the explanation below)

The Principle of Primacy refers to the person reverting to the manner in which they first learned a skill. The Principle of Recency refers to the person reverting to the manner in which they most recently successfully performed a skill under stress. While I do not know if these are academically accepted principles, Ken's explanation really resonated with me and I was able to reflect on my own experiences under stress and relate/explain my performance to these two principles.

I think the disparity in individual performance exists because people have different training experiences and what constitute stress for one individual, may not be stressful for another.

[Guinnessman]

An Autopilot is only as good as the "User inputs." As someone who is familiar with an autopilot, let's compare the "User inputs" to your typical range session. Are you creating training scars? Do you shoot a wide variety of drills to make you a more well rounded shooter? Are you shooting too much of the same drill or test? Do you blaze ammo into the berm?

In an aircraft, if the autopilot is failing to complete a task, with the correct or incorrect inputs, you must immediately intervene and fix the situation. If we get a windshear warning, the autopilot is disconnected and the windshear escape maneuver is executed. There are usually external warning signs with the weather before you experience a windshear warning, but a lot of the times the warning comes out of the blue.

This is where the training comes into play. Whether it is firearms or flying, in a stressful situation, your training will kick in.

Last week we were using an autopilot (a fancy one at that ), to shoot an instrument approach (ILS for you fellow aviators). We had a killer tail wind (calm winds at the surface), and our lovely autopilot decided to shallow our descent and make us high on our glide path. We had to turn off the autopilot, intervene, and hand fly the approach to correct the errors.

Over the summer I was FAST-bagging my training sessions and doing too much draw 2 on a 3x5 card. When I went to run different drills during the range sessions, my 3rd and subsequent shots were always delayed due to practicing too much draw two. I developed a training scar and had to correct that problem by focusing on different drills. In a real life situation I might have fired two shots and froze. That is a scary thought.

With an autopilot you must always monitor your flight path and intervene the moment you deviate. The training realm of aviation and firearms are closely related because a training scar can get you killed in both situations. The NTSB is full of reports on accidents where pilot error was the main cause of the accident, and one of the contributing factors to pilot error was poor training. You can see a correlation between these reports and OIS incidents that were failures.

That's my 2 cents worth. Now if I could only get my wife to quit interrupting my P-F.com time.

[Aray]

This is where the training comes into play. Whether it is firearms or flying, in a stressful situation, your training will kick in.

I may be splitting hairs, but I hear this too often and it bothers my OCD. I'm not disagreeing with what I think you believe, just the words that I see. I don't believe for a minute that just training is sufficient to have it "kick in".

I believe that people will fail to their level of mastery, not their level of training. Simply being trained on a skillset isn't enough if the person hasn't developed a high level of competence and confidence, his subconscious doesn't believe he can perform that skillset under the perceived level of stress/danger and he will be far less likely to execute. (Hat tip to John Hearne)

[rob_s]

I think very little is the same for everyone, autopilot included. I think human behavior is about 95% nature and 5% nurture, and the 5% get's poisoned by the 95% (we only do what feels good, and what feels good is what we like, and what we like is to do well). This is the problem with both internet discussions and with most instruction.

On the instruction side, there are those for whom certain things come easy, and those for whom certain things do not. Someone may not perform at the highest level, but because of their own struggles trying to get there they may actually be a better teacher than someone for whom things came easy. File under the "even Tiger Woods has a coach" idea as well as the "Béla Károlyi doesn't have any gold medals" concept.

On the internet side, we see discussions over and over again where people are arguing their own personal set of experiences. One guy shoots the FAST drill 2 times and gets a sub 6-second and declares it "easy" while another can't break 8 seconds without misses and thinks it's "hard". One guy carries AIWB with a G34 every day but sits only 10 minutes out of his day and another guy spends all day at a desk and can't last 20 seconds.

I say all this to say that there is a larger concept at work here. No, autopilot is most definitely not the same for everyone. That is an absolute statement. But, then, neither are any of the other bits and pieces of becoming a defensive shooter, or a survivalist, or whatever we call the guy that goes to the range every week to work 25 yard head shots, belongs to an MMA gym, takes 6 defensive classes a year, shoots matches tactically in his carry gear, and runs three miles each morning before downing a protein shake.