Major New Study: How Your Eyes Can Cast Your Fate In A Gunfight

[Earlymonk]

Okay, so the study is not "new" anymore, but I ran into a very interesting article with the above title (https://www.forcescience.org/2009/10/major-new-study-how-your-eyes-can-cast-your-fate-in-a-gunfight-part-1/) yesterday on the Force Science Institute website, though it's from ‘09. (I ran a search of PF and didn’t find anything about it here, but my Google Fu could be weak today.)

The piece lays out how Canadian researchers ran 24 UK cops...


Eleven were highly experienced, male veterans of an Emergency Response Team (ERT), seasoned in fighting terrorists among other assignments, with a median age of nearly 39. The rest were younger rookies (median age just over 30), 7 of them female, who had completed their pre-service firearms and simulation training and were considered “ready for the street.” Both groups predominately were right-eye shooters.

...through a FOF scenario, in which a suspect spun around rapidly holding either a gun or a cell phone (shoot/don’t shoot). The cops wore some pretty fancy gizmos designed to track their corneas and capture their “gaze patterns."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ERT cops were much faster, more accurate, and less prone to making the wrong decision. Perhaps surprisingly, their eyes were focused on the target, while the noobs eyes were focused on their sights. I am not wading into the “point shooting” waters, nor is the FSI. In a follow-up article, called "Point Shooting" Clarification (https://www.forcescience.org/2009/10/point-shooting-clarificationplus-what-new-gaze-pattern-findings-mean-for-your-training-part-2/) they write:


Most of the highly experienced officers in the study, in contrast, concentrated their visual focus on the target/suspect, catching only a fast glimpse of their sights in their peripheral vision and relying primarily on “an unconscious kinesthetic sense to know that their gun is up and positioned properly.”
...
“Through innumerable repetitions they have developed a highly accurate feel—a strong kinesthetic sense—for raising their gun to a proper alignment without consciously thinking about it or making a pronounced visual or attentional shift to it. If you ran a laser beam from their eye to the target, it would shine right through their sights.

“Careful sight alignment was an important step in starting them toward that point of excellence. Experience and intensive training are ultimately what brought them there. Over a long time, they were able to transition from one emphasis to another. Yet even at their exceptional performance level, referencing the sights in some manner, however fleetingly or peripherally, was still part of their response in the type of rapidly unfolding encounter designed for this study.”

Hope you find them both interesting. They address training implications as well.

(Edited to add: Only concerns irons, as this was way pre-RDS.)

[blues]

That sounds about right to me. Focus on the subject but bring the gun into alignment.

(Don't "walk" the sights to the target by focusing on them (the sights) first.)

[Earlymonk]

Sure enough, blues. Maybe this was only "major" and "new" ten years ago! :o

[blues]

Sure enough, blues. Maybe this was only "major" and "new" ten years ago! :o

I think ten years would be underestimating it...but yeah.

[JHC]

Okay, so the study is not "new" anymore, but I ran into a very interesting article with the above title (https://www.forcescience.org/2009/10/major-new-study-how-your-eyes-can-cast-your-fate-in-a-gunfight-part-1/) yesterday on the Force Science Institute website, though it's from ‘09. (I ran a search of PF and didn’t find anything about it here, but my Google Fu could be weak today.)

The piece lays out how Canadian researchers ran 24 UK cops...


Eleven were highly experienced, male veterans of an Emergency Response Team (ERT), seasoned in fighting terrorists among other assignments, with a median age of nearly 39. The rest were younger rookies (median age just over 30), 7 of them female, who had completed their pre-service firearms and simulation training and were considered “ready for the street.” Both groups predominately were right-eye shooters.

...through a FOF scenario, in which a suspect spun around rapidly holding either a gun or a cell phone (shoot/don’t shoot). The cops wore some pretty fancy gizmos designed to track their corneas and capture their “gaze patterns."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ERT cops were much faster, more accurate, and less prone to making the wrong decision. Perhaps surprisingly, their eyes were focused on the target, while the noobs eyes were focused on their sights. I am not wading into the “point shooting” waters, nor is the FSI. In a follow-up article, called "Point Shooting" Clarification (https://www.forcescience.org/2009/10/point-shooting-clarificationplus-what-new-gaze-pattern-findings-mean-for-your-training-part-2/) they write:


Most of the highly experienced officers in the study, in contrast, concentrated their visual focus on the target/suspect, catching only a fast glimpse of their sights in their peripheral vision and relying primarily on “an unconscious kinesthetic sense to know that their gun is up and positioned properly.”
...
“Through innumerable repetitions they have developed a highly accurate feel—a strong kinesthetic sense—for raising their gun to a proper alignment without consciously thinking about it or making a pronounced visual or attentional shift to it. If you ran a laser beam from their eye to the target, it would shine right through their sights.

“Careful sight alignment was an important step in starting them toward that point of excellence. Experience and intensive training are ultimately what brought them there. Over a long time, they were able to transition from one emphasis to another. Yet even at their exceptional performance level, referencing the sights in some manner, however fleetingly or peripherally, was still part of their response in the type of rapidly unfolding encounter designed for this study.”

Hope you find them both interesting. They address training implications as well.

(Edited to add: Only concerns irons, as this was way pre-RDS.)

Gio
Totally connecting this to your posts on YVK 's target focus thread.

[Earlymonk]

Just to close the loop, some of the historical threads on this topic (and referenced above) are here:

Front sight - press (https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?40205-Front-sight-press)

Target focus shooting (https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?33688-Target-focus-shooting)

[Gio]

Yes definitely. There are a lot of benefits of training to shoot target focus that crossover into real world application, this being the primary one. I think most individuals in deadly force encounters tend to focus on the target anyway, which contributes to the poor hit ratio among law enforcement officers and concealed carry holders who are likely looking over their sights, having never practiced shooting with a target focus on the range and likely not even realize they are shooting target focused when under tremendous stress/pressure.

In my experience if you regularly train to bring your sights to your point of focus and shoot that way without transitioning your focal point back to your sights, you are going to be able to make accurate shots with a target focus sight picture under stress.

Quoting my post from the Target Focus thread to bring it into the discussion here.

My experience is similar to this this statement:

Most of the highly experienced officers in the study, in contrast, concentrated their visual focus on the target/suspect

However, I find all shooters in force on force or simulation training like this focus on the target, most without realizing they are doing it. Well-practiced shooters who have a strong and subconscious index do well in those situations, but they can't recall seeing their sights if you ask them about it afterwards. However, they are able to line up their sights close enough to what they were visually looking at to be successful in those scenarios without even realizing it.

An even higher level of ability, which in my experience so few shooters have, is intentionally target focusing and being fully aware of your sights (usually requires a hi viz sight of some sort like a Trijicon HD/Ameriglo bold or fiber optic) without shifting your visual focus to them. No offense meant to the "highly experienced officers" referenced in the study, but I sincerely doubt they are shooting at this level of awareness/understanding, but more than likely they just have a well-practiced and repeatable index as mentioned above.

Expanding on this, one of the huge advantages of shooting an RDS is this higher level ability of being able to target focus and still be aware of what your sights are doing while you're under stress becomes easy for anyone to do. On the contrary though, while the RDS makes it easy to pull off this target focus awareness, lacking a solid and repeatable index is readily apparent when shooters can't find the dot on the draw, after a reload, after movement, from an awkward position, or strong hand only/weak hand only. When I hear a shooter using an RDS say their draw speed is not as fast as it is with irons, the underlying problem is their index is simply not repeatable or consistent and that lack of consistency is magnified by the RDS. This may only cost a more experienced shooter a small amount of time, while it can almost double the draw time of shooters who rarely practice. A shooter with a perfect index should see zero difference between their draw to a 7 yard open silhouette target with an RDS vs. irons. Using iron sights masks the lack of index because a shooter can use their front sight as a guide throughout their presentation to make micro adjustments to the positioning of the gun...it still costs them time but not as much as hunting for a missing dot.

Circling back to the study, if you take a shooter with a truly horrible index (aka your once a year, blow the dust of the gun and qualify LEO or the average 50-rounds/year gun owner), and put them in a stressful situation, they will also be staring at the target while they attempt to engage, but their sight alignment will be no where close to what they are looking at. Likewise if you gave them an RDS, they would never find the dot under stress.

[MDFA]

I believe Col Cooper called it. A Flash Sight Picture..... Front Sight Press...;;)

[frozentundra]

I started shooting target focus on most everything 15 yards and in because of my eyesight. Without my glasses, and in certain light conditions, I can't get a very fast focal shift. It's like an old autofocus camera that takes forever to resolve the image.

With my new prescription, I can get a much better front sight focus. However, I find now that I have become habituated to aligning the sights while focused on the target, I can shoot pretty much as accurately with target focus.

I can shoot 25 yards with target focus, but I think somewhere around 20 yards I start to notice a definite loss in precision. I don't find my slower focal shift to be quite as much of a handicap at the extended ranges, as I am working the trigger slower.

I'll bet the officers in the study were using the sights to line up the gun, just not by staring directly at the front sight post.

[El Cid]

In a Frank Proctor class back in 2013 he offered the threat/target focus technique as something to try and most of us were pleased with the results. I don’t recall anyone in the class using an optic on their pistol. As Gio mentioned the orange front sight made this tremendously easier to do.

[NH Shooter]

However, I find now that I have become habituated to aligning the sights while focused on the target, I can shoot pretty much as accurately with target focus.

I'll bet the officers in the study were using the sights to line up the gun, just not by staring directly at the front sight post.

This is exactly my situation without wearing corrective lenses.

I've been near-sighted since first grade and have worn corrective lenses all my life (I turn 66 next month). Over the last ten years my vision has improved considerably and though I still need glasses for perfect distance vision, I can definitely function (like driving) without them.

Without glasses the sights are well-focused and the target clear enough to hit it where I aim, so "target focus" for me is looking/focusing solely on the target and then bringing the sights into my line of vision. At that point since the sights are better focused than the target, I find myself taking a split-second to overlay the sight picture on the target, at which point I can see both the sights and the target equally well. When I began shooting over 40 years ago, this was not possible - either the sights or the target was in focus, not both at the same time.

This is something I'm looking to leverage with my shooting skills. I believe taking the extra split second to perfectly align the sights without having to shift my focus from the target is better than not visually referencing the sights at all.

[Dave T]

Way back in the dark ages (1977) at Gunsite, Cooper explained the reason for looking at your sights for every shot fired in practice (emphasis on the front sight) was to teach your hands, arms, and shoulders how to align the gun with where you were looking. With sufficient practice and discipline the gun would always be presented to point at the intended target. The "flash sight picture" was simply to confirm the proper alignment.

His teaching back then seems to fit perfectly with the recommendations of this study.

Dave

[Jiman]

It’s common for both bad guys and good guys in FOF SIM training to be hit in the hands.

[guymontag]

Thank you for sharing this OP, great stuff.

[HCM]

It’s common for both bad guys and good guys in FOF SIM training to be hit in the hands.

It is but it declines the higher the skill an experience level of the participants,

[Gio]

It’s common for both bad guys and good guys in FOF SIM training to be hit in the hands.

Some of this is due to the fact that your hands are in front of you blocking the upper thoracic area in force on force and is not necessarily a bad thing.

[Jiman]

Some of this is due to the fact that your hands are in front of you blocking the upper thoracic area in force on force and is not necessarily a bad thing.

Totally agree, that was what I was trying to convey in my previous post regarding your eyes, what you see, and the tendency for your hands to go where you’re looking. Combine a target focus with that, which is what generally happens in close engagements, results in getting headshots, upper thoracic and knuckle busters.

IME, target focus is directly proportional to distance/stress. The closer the engagement, the higher the stress and more likely target focus will be the natural presentation. Threats that are further away tend to cause less stress giving us time to focus on sights.