Shooting Task Research Articles

Both Movement-End and Task-End Are Critical for Error Feedback in Visuomotor Adaptation: A Behavioral Experiment

An important issue in motor learning/adaptation research is how the brain accepts the error information necessary for maintaining and improving task performance in a changing environment. The present study focuses on the effect of timing of error feedback. Previous research has demonstrated that adaptation to displacement of the visual field by prisms in a manual reaching task is significantly slowed by delayed visual feedback of the endpoint, suggesting that error feedback is most effective when given at the end of a movement. To further elucidate the brain mechanism by which error information is accepted in visuomotor adaptation, we tested whether error acceptance is linked to the end of a given task or to the end of an executed movement. We conducted a behavioral experiment using a virtual shooting task in which subjects controlled their wrist movements to meet a target with a cursor as accurately as possible. We manipulated the timing of visual feedback of the impact position so that it occurred either ahead of or behind the true time of impact. In another condition, the impact timing was explicitly indicated by an additional cue. The magnitude of the aftereffect significantly varied depending on the timing of feedback (p < 0.05, Friedman's Test). Interestingly, two distinct peaks of aftereffect were observed around movement-end and around task-end, irrespective of the existence of the timing cue. However, the peak around task-end was sharper when the timing cue was given. Our results demonstrate that the brain efficiently accepts error information at both movement-end and task-end, suggesting that two different learning mechanisms may underlie visuomotor transformation.

Cardiovascular indices of challenge and threat states predict competitive performance

Cardiovascular (CV) reactivity is proposed by both the Biopsychosocial Model and the Theory of Challenge and Threat States in Athletes to predict competitive performance. The association between CV reactivity and competitive performance was examined in cognitive (Study 1) and motor (Study 2) tasks. In Study 1, 25 participants (9 female) completed a modified Stroop Test, and in Study 2, 21 female netballers completed a netball shooting task, under competition. Measures of CV reactivity, self-report measures of self-efficacy, control, achievement-goals and emotions along with baseline and competitive task performance were taken. CV reactivity indicative of a challenge state predicted superior performance in both tasks compared to CV reactivity indicative of a threat state. In both studies the purported relationships between CV reactivity and the psychological and emotional responses were weak or absent. The mechanisms for the observed association between CV reactivity and task performance are discussed alongside implications of the findings for future research and practice.

Emotion and automaticity: Impact of positive and negative emotions on novice and experienced performance of a sensorimotor skill

Attention was directed towards negative, neutral, and positive word stimuli to explore the effect of emotions on sensorimotor skill performance. Forty novice and 40 experienced basketballers simultaneously completed a free-throw shooting task and a secondary word semantics task. A manipulation check confirmed that the secondary task influenced participants' feelings. Both groups responded faster to neutral and positive words than negative words. Shooting performance of novices did not differ between experimental conditions, but experienced basketballers were more accurate when processing positive stimuli. It was concluded that directing attention towards positive emotion may have benefited sports performance by diverting attention away from execution of the primary task, promoting automatic skill execution by experienced basketballers.

Skill-based differences in the cognitive mechanisms underlying failure under stress

Studies of “choking under pressure” suggest novices choke because attention is distracted away from the primary task. In contrast with the traditional research on stress and performance, where additional resources made available with increasing skill can ameliorate the effects of stress, experts are thought to degrade because stress draws attention to, and disrupts, previously proceduralized performance. Two kinds of dual-tasks, extraneous and skill-focused, were used to examine skill-based differences in attentional demands of a live-fire, handgun shooting task. Expert and novice police officers completed shooting trials under moderate time pressure. Contrary to choking research findings, the performance of experts was not adversely affected by skill-focused attention whereas novices were. This pattern was also reflected in a range of process measures. The results challenge currently accepted explanations of choking under pressure, and suggest that the degree to which expert performance is cognitively mediated may be greater than previously assumed. Implications for traditional theories of skill acquisition and for training to perform in stressful environments are discussed.

Shooting behaviour: How working memory and negative emotionality influence police officer shoot decisions

AbstractPrevious research on police officer shoot decisions has focussed on the influence of situational factors that lead to the shooting error. Focussing instead on the ‘shooter’, the present study examined whether working memory capacity and threat‐related increases in negative emotionality influenced participant shoot decisions in a simulated shooting task. Following a working memory test, 24 police officers viewed a police‐relevant threatening video while physiological indices of arousal and negative affect were obtained and then completed a computerized shoot‐don't shoot task. Results indicated that lower working memory capacity was associated with a greater likelihood of shooting unarmed targets and a failure to shoot armed targets. Moreover, an interaction effect indicated that these associations were only significant for officers who experienced heightened negative emotionality in response to the video. Results suggest that when negatively aroused via threat, limited working memory capacity increases the risk of shooting error. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Ironic effects and final target fixation in a penalty shooting task

The aim of the present study was to find out whether ironic effects in a far aiming task were accompanied by shorter final fixations on the target. Generally, it is well known that a sufficiently long final fixation on the target is of crucial importance for accurate performance in far aiming. Recently, it has been shown that ironic effects in golf putts and penalty kicks (in which one does the opposite of what was intended, e.g., shoot close to the keeper while attempting to avoid this) were preceded by longer fixations on the to-be-avoided area, which may have resulted in shorter final fixations on the target area. Therefore, in the current study we examined football players taking penalties in a simulated penalty environment with and without instructions to avoid the goalkeeper. The findings revealed that ironic effects were indeed accompanied by significantly shorter final fixations on the target area, i.e., the open goal space. It is concluded that in far aiming tasks, ironic effects are accompanied by insufficiently long final fixations on the target.

Implicit Racial Attitudes and Law Enforcement Shooting Decisions

Recent cases of police shootings of unarmed Black men have led to a flurry of research on how race may affect the decision of police to shoot. The current study examines how levels of implicit racial bias in samples of both police cadets and college students predict performance on a simulated shooting task. Police cadets had stronger implicit biases against Blacks than college students. Cadets also displayed higher levels of explicit racial bias (as measured by the Modern Racism Scale). Results from the simulated shooter task replicated past results, with armed Black targets yielding the fastest reaction times across groups. However, IAT scores did not predict reaction times on the shooter task, but did predict the number of mistakes made when the target was Black and unarmed. Explicit racial bias correlated with reaction time and mistakes made on the task. These results suggest that future research on implicit bias in law enforcement officers may be fruitful, especially as it relates to shooting decisions.

Effect of timing of error feedback on prism adaptation in a virtual shooting task

Effect of timing of error feedback on prism adaptation in a virtual shooting task

Aggressive shooting behavior: How working memory and threat influence shoot decisions

Previous research on police officer shoot decisions has focused on the influence of situational factors that lead to shooting error. Focusing instead on the “shooter,” the present study examined whether WM capacity influenced participant shoot decisions in a simulated shooting task with varied threat level. Participants were 282 undergraduate students who completed a measure of operation span, viewed a police-relevant threatening or control video, and completed a computerized shooting task. Results indicated a significant negative association between operation span and the tendency to shoot at unarmed targets. Exposure to police-related threat did not influence shooting behavior. Results suggest that regardless of whether circumstances are threatening, individuals with limited WM capacity are at increased risk of aggressive shooting behavior.

Workload and Performance: A Field Evaluation in a Police Shooting Range

One vital responsibility of all law enforcement officers lies in their obligation to defend themselves and those around them in the event of a violent threat. The best tool available to them to perform this duty is their sidearm and their skill in using it. To evaluate the efficiency of this tool use, seventy-one police officers participated in a field study examining the relationship between workload and shooting performance. Use of linear regression analysis produced evidence linking higher reported workload on the mental subscale of the NASA-TLX while completing a shooting task to poorer shooting performance when controlling for marksmanship skill. This finding is discussed in the context of previous work in the areas of workload and attentional allocation.

Aiming routines and their electrocortical concomitants among competitive rifle shooters.

The present study focused on an examination of competitive shooters' aiming process during a rifle shooting task. The barrel movements of the rifle, as detected by a laser system during the last 1000-ms time period preceding the triggering, were recorded from six elite and six pre-elite shooters. Electrocortical slow potentials (SPs) from frontal (Fz), centro-lateral (C3, C4), and occipital (Oz) brain areas were recorded to get an additional insight into the underlying covert processing. The results suggested that the elite shooters did not pull the trigger until they reached a sustained rifle position. In the pre-elite shooters the rifle appeared to be in a less stable position, and their strategy was to take advantage of the first appropriate moment of steadiness without a sustained rifle position so they could pull the trigger. The observed pre-trigger readiness potential (RP) shifts at Fz and Oz were more positive among the elite shooters relative to the pre-elite shooters, reflecting their more pronounced covert effort, rather than increasing preparedness for the trigger pull. The present study lends support for the view that a successful aiming strategy is mainly based on sustained rifle balancing. With regards to the brain slow potentials, it can be concluded that the RP shift does not specifically reflect the preparation for the trigger pull.

Improvement Strategies in Free-Throw Shooting and Grip-Strength Tasks

Participants performed a free-throw shooting task and a grip-strength task before and after imagery, nonspecific arousal, or no instructions. Imagery improved performance in the free-throw shooting task, which is assumed to have more cognitive components than the grip-strength task. Imagery did not improve performance in the grip-strength task, which is assumed to have fewer cognitive components than the free-throw task. Nonspecific arousal, on the other hand, improved performance in the grip-strength task but not in the free-throw shooting task. Athletic experience, confidence levels, and gender were correlated with actual performance levels in both tasks, but not with improvement. Results are discussed within the transfer-appropriate processing framework.

Brain Slow Potentials and Postural Sway Behavior During Sharpshooting Performance

In the present study, the relation of preparatory brain slow potentials (SPs) to postural body sway during sharp-shooting performance was examined. SPs from frontal, left-central, and right-central areas were recorded from 6 elite and 6 non-elite sharpshooters during a realistic simulated shooting task. A force platform technique was used in the recording of postural sway. The results showed that body sway, as indexed by sway amplitude and mean velocity, was associated with the concomitant SP changes. That relationship was dependent on the shooter's expertise level, however. The main finding among the elite shooters was that the reduced amplitude of body sway coincided with reduced frontal positivity, whereas in the non-elite shooters, the amplitude of sway and the mean sway velocity in the anteroposterior direction were typically accompanied by the lateralization of central negativity. Those findings offer some new insights for evaluating the functional significance of preparatory brain SPs associated with psychomotor processing in sharpshooting. The results from the present study also have implications for the understanding of the postural strategies employed by shooters of different expertise levels.

Learned helplessness: A survey of cognitive, motivational and perceptual-motor consequences in motor tasks

The aim of this study was to observe the effects of demonstration and controllability on causal attributions, self-efficacy expectations, number of attempts and performances on a pistol shooting task. Video demonstrations were used to induce different social comparisons bound to personal or universal helplessness. Students were randomly assigned in a 3x3 (demonstration x controllability) factorial design. The demonstration conditions were: watching a video designed to have participants believe the task was very easy (1), or very difficult (2), or not being exposed to a demonstration (3). The controllability conditions were: a controllable shooting task at a moving target on the computer screen (1), an uncontrollable task at a moving target on the computer screen (2), and a control condition in which participants were given a reading task (3). Finally, a different shooting task was used as a test measure. Analyses of variance showed that different demonstration conditions did not distinguish between personal and universal helplessness. Participants in the controllable condition demonstrated the best performances. Participants confronted with the uncontrollable condition were the least persistent. These findings in part support the general literature on learned helplessness and warrant further research into motor skills.

Brain slow waves preceding time‐locked visuo‐motor performance

According to previous findings (Konttinen and Lyytinen, 1992), the slow brain negativity preceding the trigger pull in rifle-shooting tends to be decreased in successful shots among experienced marksmen, whereas no such pattern is found among inexperienced subjects. This effect was interpreted as resulting mainly from optimal arousal. However, another explanation is examined here. The aim of the experiment was to investigate slow electrocortical changes associated with motor regulation and visual aiming related to shooting performance. Four variations on a shooting task were used, in which the visual and motor components were contrasted. Motor activity related to gun stabilization was found to be associated with slow-wave positivity, whereas visual aiming was manifested as slow negativity. The results offer some basis for interpreting the individual slow brain wave patterns that predict shooting performance.

The Effects of Goal Proximity on Skill Acquisition and Retention of a Shooting Task in a Field-Based Setting

This study investigated the effect of goal proximity on skill acquisition and retention of a selected shooting task. Twelve classes (n=181) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: (a) short-term goals, (b) a long-term goal, (c) short-term plus long-term goals, and (d) do-your-best goals. The pretest and six skill acquisition/retention trials were analyzed in a 4×2×6 (Goal Groups × Gender × Trials) MANCOVA design with repeated measures on the last factor and with the pretest as the covariate. Results of a multivariate F test revealed significant main effects for goal groups, gender, and trials. Post hoc tests indicated that the three specific goal-setting groups were superior to the do-your-best group. Males were statistically superior to females in the shooting task. The follow-up tests on trials revealed that as trials progressed, shooting performance improved significantly.

The Effects of Three Styles of Teaching on University Students’ Motor Performance

The effects of three teaching styles (command, practice, and reciprocal) from Mosston’s Spectrum of Teaching Styles were investigated in terms of motor skill acquisition and retention of a selected shooting task. University students (N=135) enrolled in nine riflery classes were randomly assigned by class to one of three treatment groups. A 3×6 (Teaching styles × Sets of trials) ANCOVA, with repeated measures on the last factor and pretest performance as the covariate, revealed a significant group-by-trials interaction. Command and practice styles were significantly superior to the reciprocal style in terms of skill acquisition and retention. Discussion addresses not only previous research on Mosston’s styles but also the research in teacher effectiveness and selected motor-learning constructs.

Goal Proximity and Achievement Motivation of High School Boys in a Basketball Shooting Task

The purpose of this study was to test the effects of goal proximity and achievement motivation on basketball shooting performance in a regular physical education class setting. Data were collected on 79 male Grade 10 students. One week prior to the beginning of a 4-week basketball unit, students were categorized as high achievers and low achievers based on their achievement score on the Howe Sport Behavior Assessment Scale. Within each achievement group, subjects were randomly assigned to either a weekly short-term goal group, a long-term goal group, or a short-term-plus-longterm goal group. Subjects completed the Speed Spot Shooting Test once every week to measure their performance in relation to their assigned goals. No significant differences among the variables were revealed. A postexperimental questionnaire revealed that a majority of students from all goal conditions were setting their own short-term goals. Results are discussed in terms of Bandura’s self-efficacy theory of motivation and the use of goals in motor skill tasks in physical education.

Effects of Assigned versus Participant-Set Goals on Skill Acquisition and Retention of a Selected Shooting Task

This study investigated the effect of three goal-setting conditions on skill acquisition and retention of a selected shooting task. Utilizing a two-stage random-sampling technique, nine classes (N=138 subjects) were assigned to one of three conditions: (a) assigned specific goals, (b) participant-set specific goals, and (c) generalized do-your-best goals. The pretest and five skill acquisition trials were analyzed in a 3×6 (Goal groups × Trials) MANOVA design with repeated measures on the last factor. The procedure for the retention trial resulted in a 3×1 (Goal groups × Trial) ANOVA design. Results indicated a significant groups-by-trials interaction. The follow-up analyses revealed that the two specific goal-setting groups (assigned and participant-set goals) were significantly superior to the do-your-best group during the second, fourth, fifth, and retention trials.

The Effects of an Instructional Strategy with Two Schedules of Augmented KP Feedback upon Skill Acquisition of a Selected Shooting Task

This field-based study investigated the effect of an instructional strategy with two schedules of augmented knowledge-of-performance (KP) feedback on skill acquisition of a selected shooting task. Students enrolled in university rifle classes (N=135) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (a) instructional strategy (IS) with KP feedback after every trial, (b) IS with summary KP feedback, and (c) no IS with no KP feedback. Data collection consisted of (a) a pretest phase (one set of five trials) and (b) an acquisition phase (four sets of five trials). Instructional integrity was maintained during data collection so that students were treated as class participants. The findings indicated that (a) the presence of the instructional strategy in conjunction with the two feedback schedules appeared to positively effect the overall shooting performance as compared to no strategy/no KP, (b) the effects of the two KP schedules did not statistically differ from one another, and (c) the significant effect for trials indicated that as shooting practice progressed subjects in all three conditions appeared to improve.