New study, "Gaze Patterns" part 2

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prdator

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• “The ERT had a higher frequency of fixations than the rookies in all phases [of the scenario] except the aim/fire phase, when the ERT had fewer fixations to fewer locations than the rookies, indicative of greater focus and concentration as they aimed and fired.”
• The ERT increasingly directed their attention to the suspect’s gun hand/arm as the scenario evolved. “They increased the percent of fixations to this location from 21 percent in the assessment and early pivot phases to 71 percent during the final two seconds. On hits, the ERT directed 86 percent of their final fixations to this one location, revealing a remarkable degree of focus and concentration under fire.” And, the study explains, they had time for a final, undisturbed period of super-concentration that Vicker’s calls “the quiet eye,” which has been linked with high performance across many different genres of athletics. In this, their eye remained settled on a defined target location through trigger pull.
• “The rookies did not show the same funneling of their attention to the assailant’s gun hand/arm,” the study points out. Early on, similar to the ERT, they concentrated a minority of their fixations there. But at the time the suspect aimed and fired, only 33 percent of the rookies’ fixations were directed there, a modest and inadequate increase. And whatever quiet-eye time they exhibited was significantly lower.
TELL-TALE SACCADE
Perhaps most startling, the officers’ last abrupt shift of gaze before firing was found to be radically different between the two groups.
The rookie’s final saccade, especially among those who missed when they fired, “occurred at the same time they tried to fixate the target and aim,” the study reveals. At that critical moment in the last 500 ms, the rookies in a staggering 82 percent of their tests took their eyes off the assailant and attempted to look at their own gun, trying to find or confirm sight alignment as they aimed. “This pulled them out of the gunfight for what turned out to be a significant period of time,” Lewinski says. Vickers adds: “On a high percentage of their shots, the rookies did not see the assailant as they fired,” contributing to inaccurate shooting and the misjudgment of the cell phone as a threat.
About 30 percent of the ERT also looked at their gun, but their timing was different. Most of those gaze-shifts occurred before the officers aimed, “followed by the onset of their aim and fixation on the target and firing.”
FLAWED TRAINING?
The researchers pose the possibility that the rookies’ training may have contributed to their poor performance. They were taught pistolcraft “similar to how most police officers first learn to shoot a handgun: to focus first on the rear sight, then on the front sight, and finally on the target, aligning all three before pulling the trigger.”
“This is a very time-consuming process and one that was not successful in this study,” Vickers says.
Somewhere across their training, practice, and experience, the successful ERT officers had learned what essentially is a reverse process: Their immediate and predominate focus is on the weapon carried by their attacker. With their gaze concentrated there, they bring their gun up to their line of sight and catch their sights only in their peripheral vision, a subtle “sight glimpse,” as Lewinski terms it. “They have an unconscious kinesthetic sense to know that their gun is up and positioned properly,” he says. “This is a focus strategy that Olympic shooters use,” says Vickers, “and it is simpler, faster, and more effective.”
As the assailant’s actual attack got underway, the elite officers were zeroed in on a “weapons focus.” That is, the ERT officers’ “fixations were not directed to the assailant’s centre of mass as he pivoted and fired, but to the weapon itself, which he held away from his body until the moment he fired. The ERT tracked the weapon as soon as it was visible, using a series of fixations. Because he was moving rapidly, it was only during the last few milliseconds that his centre mass presented a viable target.”
“This intense attentiveness to the weapon can have memory implications later on,” Lewinski explains. “Now we have an empirical study showing why an officer who survives a gunfight may be unable to identify a perpetrator’s face or recall other important details proximate to the shooting, such as the body position or turning action of the subject.”
Now that the study has documented important ways in which expert shooters behave, how can trainers best convey these elite skills to other officers? “FSRC plans to do more work with Dr. Vickers to identify answers to that question,” Lewinski says. “But already, these findings suggest some important changes that will point us in the right direction.”
NEXT: What will it take in terms of gaze and attention training to make police firearms skills much greater much faster?
 

KurtM

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Interesting study, but I think some of the interpretation of the data arrives at wrong conclusions. I do believe that the people who are doing this test aren't shooters, or shoot very little. Eye movement and focus studies are rather new science, and the last time I was exposed to it, it was very necessary to keep the head absolutely still while reading eye movement and focus. With that said here is my read on it, and I am in NO WAY an expert on eye focus/ocular studies.

First I would like to point out this study was done at the SO-19 training facility at Graves End in London. SO-19 is the armed branch of the Metropolitan police force, the patrol arm of Scotland Yard. It is a fairly well appointed facility, with many shooting ranges a 360 vehicle defense range and many F.A.T.S. simulator modules and live fire fun houses. The average SO-19 policeman receives quite a bit of firearms training, a full month before being certified, but not all of it is shooting related it deals with legality and a myriad of other things related to carrying a firearm and some force on force training before being certified to carry a gun on duty. Remember the average Policeman in England doesn't carry a firearm. SO-19 officers are assigned various duties to include, Royalty protection, Palace security, governmental protection, roving patrol, and emergency reaction teams ( similar to S.W.A.T that you are familiar with). SO-19 officers are very likely to use a firearm in the course of their duty with SO-19, as when they are called, the situation already requires an armed response of some kind, except for the protection units which are akin to our Secret Service. The ERT guys get the most firearms training, just like our SWAT, and the average Patrol SO-19 not as much, just like our regular Police forces. So as you can see the ERT guys already have an edge with their ongoing training. The graduate is fairly fresh from training and hasn't had the time to really assimilate all he has been exposed to, so that part of the test is very good and valid.

Where I start to see this breaking down, is in the "focus" just before the decision to shoot. The testers make the assumption that "sight picture" is taught, focus on the rear sight, then the front sight, and then the target. I don't know of any place that teaches this to include L.E. firearms training. ( the classic "front sight" focus is what I have always heard). and in the context of the test, their way to focus on sights would be slow!....but it isn't taught that way, even at SO-19. They then make mention of the "flash sight picture". " a subtle “sight glimpse,” as Lewinski terms." and then proceed to miss-understand what it is.

A flash sight picture is the final focus back to the front sight to reaffirm alignment of the firearm at the time of firing. Their study seems to think this is done in the peripheral vision. "“They have an unconscious kinesthetic sense to know that their gun is up and positioned properly,” he says. “This is a focus strategy that Olympic shooters use,” says Vickers, “and it is simpler, faster, and more effective.”
This is NOT the focus of Olympic shooters, EXCEPT for the shot gunners who do use a target focus. The precision shooters of rifle and pistol use a very definite FRONT SIGHT focus, although it isn't a "flash sight picture", it a deliberate focus.

The next part I have a bit of trouble with, is the weapons focus. Now it is very natural to fixate on the threat...ie. the weapon they have in their hand, and it happens to everyone, unless it has been trained out, or experience of first hand, so I am not doubting what they say here. I don't doubt that ALL the test subjects had a weapons focus at least for 2/3 of the time the subject was spinning around, in order to ascertain whether it was a "shooting threat" or not. What I do have trouble with is that if the officers MAINTAINED weapons focus, most of the hits would have been in the region of the weapon/cell phone it'sself....NOT center of mass. Now I do note that they actually stack the deck in their favor, probably inadvertently, that the role player makes sure that the weapon he is holding ends up in the center of his mass. "That is, the ERT officers’ “fixations were not directed to the assailant’s center of mass as he pivoted and fired, but to the weapon itself, which he held away from his body until the moment he fired. The ERT tracked the weapon as soon as it was visible, using a series of fixations. Because he was moving rapidly, it was only during the last few milliseconds that his center mass presented a viable target.”
I feel that the "rookies" stayed with a weapons focus all the way through the discharge of the weapon...which their test confirm; Don't re-sift their focus to the front sight at the last second and are rewarded with a miss most of the time. The ERT guys who have been shooting much more and almost all have been under fire, do in fact do a flash sight picture and are rewarded with a hit most of the time. Now at this point the testers make the correlation that if you peripherally see your gun and stare at the weapon of your opponent you will get a nice center hit. To test this theory all they had to do was to make sure the aggressor ended up with the gun not in line with his center of mass, and then redo the test. IF the aggressor was hit center of mass most the time, I would agree with their conclusion, except I know from experience that if you indeed have a weapon focus/fixation your bullets will land in and around the weapon...not the center of mass. In all the training I have done, both force on force and decision based shooting, I can assure you that the officer who stares at the opponent's gun will usually miss, but IF he does get lucky, the hit will land around where the opponent's gun is. If he is well trained in the concept of center of mass/flash sight picture, he will usually get a nice center hit. I think their test does show this to be the case, but they reach the wrong conclusion in the fact that the ERT guys are in fact using a flash sight picture not a weapon focus. The danger of that conclusion is that if taken at face value, and we start teaching officer to fixate on the weapon/subject.....ONCE AGAIN, the hit ratio will drop to the levels we saw before the Front sight/flash sight picture were taught.

I do commend them for studying this. Any and all knowledge we can gain, can only help, but we need to make sure we come to good conclusions with the test data available, and of course this is only my opinion. KurtM
 

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