Do master competitors point-shoot?

[Jshuberg]

There are a lot of different things that come into play here. I believe that some people are confusing raw reaction time with the ability to follow a moving object and be able to observe it's location at an exact moment. Toothguy also made the observation that with training "you see things that were always there but hidden somehow". This is a fantastic observation, and there is a measured scientific principle that explains how things become "hidden".

Raw reaction time is the amount of time that it takes your brain to perceive a random event, determine what to do about it, and then initiate the response. These are 3 separate activities that all consume time. Sensory input and motor control output travel through a hierarchy of layers of the mind, several subconscious, and finally the conscious layer at the top. Every level of that hierarchy adds additional time to each of these activities. A persons conscious reaction time is considerably slower, potentially as much as twice as slow as the reaction time of lower levels of the subconscious.

The front sight being in motion is not a random event. A person can react to where the front sight was at the moment the shot broke much faster than raw reaction time. The reason is that the location of the front sight doesn't just "appear" at the instant the shot breaks, the shooter observes it as it tracks down from the previous shot. Yes, there is probably a little bit of predictability happening here, but the main point is that when observing the front sight in motion, the brain can process it's location at any given instant much more quickly than when trying to identify a random event. Those reaction time tests test raw reaction time of a random event, which isn't whats happening when shooting fast splits, although is happening when responding to a timer.

Because our mind doesn't have to respond to a random event, and is capable of tracking the sight through recoil, the amount of time it takes to perceive the location of the sight takes less time as the mind isn't trying to "find it", it knows where it is and where it's likely to be next. If a person has trained to make a decision on what to do with this information in the subconscious mind, the processing and motor control initiation times are significantly reduced compared to the conscious mind. In other words, people are capable of seeing and reacting to something much faster than raw reaction time measurements predict.

However, if a person loses the front sight and then reacquires it when it settles back into the rear, it doesn't work anywhere near as well. A person may be able to react to the location of the front sight when the next shot breaks a little faster than their raw reaction time, but it will certainly be slower than if they were able to track the front sight through recoil without losing it. Again, the reason is that when a person is able to observe a continuous motion, the time it takes the mind to "find" it again isn't wasted the way it is when trying to respond to something happening randomly or instantaneously.

I believe that the reason that people have such a hard time tracking the front sight through recoil is due to a condition known as chronostasis. This is a mental illusion that our mind plays on us in order to simplify our stream of consciousness. It's been scientifically observed and measured with both auditory stimuli and sacades of the eye, but also occurs when an object being closely focused on makes a short rapid motion. What happens is that the mind decides that the starting and ending locations are important, but the actual transition between them isn't. This is an optimization that our mind performs since most of the time the transition isn't of much importance, and dropping rapid transitions from our stream of consciousness removes unnecessary complexity from what is being observed. The mind simply backfills a memory of the location of where a transition ended for the amount of time that the transition took.

The classic example of this is to look away from a clock, and then rapidly move your eyes back to a clock. Every once in awhile the second hand will appear to stall for a brief moment before before continuing it's motion. What happened is that the mind decided that the transition of the eye wasn't important, and it backfilled the memory of the position of the second hand into your stream of consciousness for the amount of time it took your eyes to move. Because the memory being backfilled is a snapshot in time, you perceive that you instantly switched from where you were looking to the clock, that the second hand paused in time for a brief moment, and then continued it's motion. The movement of your eyes was dropped from your stream of consciousness.

This is what prevents people from being able to continuously track their front sight blade through recoil. It has nothing directly to do with reaction time, it has to do with mental illusions and optimizations our mind makes to our stream of consciousness. It may appear to be reaction time related, since the time it takes to reacquire the front sight after losing it to the effects of chronostasis is equal to or very close to our raw reaction time. This is only an effect though, if a person is able to overcome the effects of chronostasis through training, or by learning to lower their awareness to the subconscious layer (an altered state of consciousness), a person will be able to continuously track their front sight through recoil in near real time. A person who is suffering the effects of chronostasis will not see the front sight moving (although they might convince themselves that they do). The sight will appear to have instantly jumped from the starting to the ending location, and that it takes approximately your raw reaction time to respond to it.

The common but incorrect belief people tend to have is that a person cannot see or process something that happens much faster then their raw reaction time. What is more correct is that a person cannot see or process something that happens much faster then their raw reaction time when responding to a random or instantaneous event, or while experiencing the effects of chronostasis. When the mind doesn't throw away rapid transitions from our stream of consciousness, and it doesn't have to waste time reacquiring the ending location perceived as an instantaneous event, a person can see, process, and respond to something much faster than their raw reaction time would predict. The biggest performance limitation isn't a persons reaction time, its whether they are suffering the effects of chronostasis or not.

Edited December 21, 2013 by Jshuberg

[Chills1994]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronostasis

[Whoops!]

There are a lot of different things that come into play here. I believe that some people are confusing raw reaction time with the ability to follow a moving object and be able to observe it's location at an exact moment. Toothguy also made the observation that with training "you see things that were always there but hidden somehow". This is a fantastic observation, and there is a measured scientific principle that explains how things become "hidden".

Raw reaction time is the amount of time that it takes your brain to perceive a random event, determine what to do about it, and then initiate the response. These are 3 separate activities that all consume time. Sensory input and motor control output travel through a hierarchy of layers of the mind, several subconscious, and finally the conscious layer at the top. Every level of that hierarchy adds additional time to each of these activities. A persons conscious reaction time is considerably slower, potentially as much as twice as slow as the reaction time of lower levels of the subconscious.

The front sight being in motion is not a random event. A person can react to where the front sight was at the moment the shot broke much faster than raw reaction time. The reason is that the location of the front sight doesn't just "appear" at the instant the shot breaks, the shooter observes it as it tracks down from the previous shot. Yes, there is probably a little bit of predictability happening here, but the main point is that when observing the front sight in motion, the brain can process it's location at any given instant much more quickly than when trying to identify a random event. Those reaction time tests test raw reaction time of a random event, which isn't whats happening when shooting fast splits, although is happening when responding to a timer.

Because our mind doesn't have to respond to a random event, and is capable of tracking the sight through recoil, the amount of time it takes to perceive the location of the sight takes less time as the mind isn't trying to "find it", it knows where it is and where it's likely to be next. If a person has trained to make a decision on what to do with this information in the subconscious mind, the processing and motor control initiation times are significantly reduced compared to the conscious mind. In other words, people are capable of seeing and reacting to something much faster than raw reaction time measurements predict.

However, if a person loses the front sight and then reacquires it when it settles back into the rear, it doesn't work anywhere near as well. A person may be able to react to the location of the front sight when the next shot breaks a little faster than their raw reaction time, but it will certainly be slower than if they were able to track the front sight through recoil without losing it. Again, the reason is that when a person is able to observe a continuous motion, the time it takes the mind to "find" it again isn't wasted the way it is when trying to respond to something happening randomly or instantaneously.

I believe that the reason that people have such a hard time tracking the front sight through recoil is due to a condition known as chronostasis. This is a mental illusion that our mind plays on us in order to simplify our stream of consciousness. It's been scientifically observed and measured with both auditory stimuli and sacades of the eye, but also occurs when an object being closely focused on makes a short rapid motion. What happens is that the mind decides that the starting and ending locations are important, but the actual transition between them isn't. This is an optimization that our mind performs since most of the time the transition isn't of much importance, and dropping rapid transitions from our stream of consciousness removes unnecessary complexity from what is being observed. The mind simply backfills a memory of the location of where a transition ended for the amount of time that the transition took.

The classic example of this is to look away from a clock, and then rapidly move your eyes back to a clock. Every once in awhile the second hand will appear to stall for a brief moment before before continuing it's motion. What happened is that the mind decided that the transition of the eye wasn't important, and it backfilled the memory of the position of the second hand into your stream of consciousness for the amount of time it took your eyes to move. Because the memory being backfilled is a snapshot in time, you perceive that you instantly switched from where you were looking to the clock, that the second hand paused in time for a brief moment, and then continued it's motion. The movement of your eyes was dropped from your stream of consciousness.

This is what prevents people from being able to continuously track their front sight blade through recoil. It has nothing directly to do with reaction time, it has to do with mental illusions and optimizations our mind makes to our stream of consciousness. It may appear to be reaction time related, since the time it takes to reacquire the front sight after losing it to the effects of chronostasis is equal to or very close to our raw reaction time. This is only an effect though, if a person is able to overcome the effects of chronostasis through training, or by learning to lower their awareness to the subconscious layer (an altered state of consciousness), a person will be able to continuously track their front sight through recoil in near real time. A person who is suffering the effects of chronostasis will not see the front sight moving (although they might convince themselves that they do). The sight will appear to have instantly jumped from the starting to the ending location, and that it takes approximately your raw reaction time to respond to it.

The common but incorrect belief people tend to have is that a person cannot see or process something that happens much faster then their raw reaction time. What is more correct is that a person cannot see or process something that happens much faster then their raw reaction time when responding to a random or instantaneous event, or while experiencing the effects of chronostasis. When the mind doesn't throw away rapid transitions from our stream of consciousness, and it doesn't have to waste time reacquiring the ending location perceived as an instantaneous event, a person can see, process, and respond to something much faster than their raw reaction time would predict. The biggest performance limitation isn't a persons reaction time, its whether they are suffering the effects of chronostasis or not.

Ok, so here's the kicker. Believe it or not, I agree with everything stated in this post and think it is extremely well stated.

[tigerkf]

If you have time to bring the gun to eye level, you have time to use the sights. It doesn't have to be a clear perfect sight picture

I also would not take shooting advice from Ayoob

EXACTLY!

[dbooksta]

Here's an extreme example of no-question-he's-point-shooting, by Vitaly Kryuchin (Russian IPSC phenom):

In the video comments he claims he can call his shots even with no sight picture.

Granted, we can't be sure whether this is just "trick-shooting" (meaning that he couldn't pull off similar performances on a novel course). Or does anyone have footage of him in competition that may show him clearly shooting with no sight picture?