Complex Decisions in Shooting

In a study on baseball that Dan Levy and Dave Kirscher did, they looked at simple reactions and complex reactions. They compared trained athletes to everyday people.

When the decision was a simple decision, like “red light, green light, stop or go,” there was no difference in the speed or accuracy between the trained athletes, and the normal everyday people that walked down the street.

But when the decision was what they called a “complex decision,” i.e., being aware of one stimulus and ignoring many other stimuli in the picture, the trained athletes were 31% faster, and 35% more accurate due to their training than the other group.

When we shoot a shotgun, we are making complex decisions on every target that we shoot. That’s why the visual process is so important leading up to closing the gun and calling “pull,” because Lord knows we have to ignore a lot of other visual stimuli to pick up that target and keep focused on that target.