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Competition, Tactics & Training
Firearm Training
New study, "Gaze Patterns" part 2
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<blockquote data-quote="KurtM" data-source="post: 863744" data-attributes="member: 6064"><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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".<span style="color: Blue"> " a subtle “sight glimpse,” as Lewinski terms." </span>and then proceed to miss-understand what it is.</p><p></p><p> 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. <span style="color: blue">"“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.”</span></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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. <span style="color: blue">"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.” </span></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="KurtM, post: 863744, member: 6064"] 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".[COLOR="Blue"] " a subtle “sight glimpse,” as Lewinski terms." [/COLOR]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. [COLOR="blue"]"“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.”[/COLOR] 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. [COLOR="blue"]"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.” [/COLOR] 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 [/QUOTE]
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