Experienced archers judge space more accurately than people who do not shoot

The summary today

There are two studies, they look at two different senses and they reach opposite conclusions. In 2016 a master's thesis compared 29 good Irish archers, all shooting recurve, with 30 people who had never shot: bisecting a line on paper, the archers erred far less, 0.26 millimetres to the left against 1.76, they spread their marks symmetrically in a cancellation test, told the target apart from distractors better in a computer visual search, and walked through a narrow doorway without touching it 19.55 times out of 20 against 18.43. Ten years earlier, though, a touch task on twenty blind men had produced the opposite result: feeling for the centre of a small rod with a finger, the ten archers erred more than the ten who did not shoot and shifted the centre to the left. Even within the thesis the picture is not clean, because letter cancellation gives different results in the two experiments and in the computer line bisection the printed table contradicts the text. Neither study follows the same archers over time, so nobody knows whether the difference comes from shooting or from the people who take it up, and neither links it to the score.

Also phrased as: "archery trains the eye"; "archers have a good eye"; "spatial perception in archers"; "pseudoneglect in archers"; "spatial attention and archery"

Evidence

• 2006
  Against Archers Published later

  10 blind archers in the B1 category, shooting at regional level, against 10 blind men who do not shoot, all right-handed: feeling for the centre of balsa rods 14 to 34 centimetres long, the archers erred more, mean error 1.23 against 0.98 (F = 13.14, p < 0.002), although the difference depends on the hand and on the end they start from. They also shifted the centre to the left, -0.27 against 0.04. It is a touch task close to the body, a long way from aiming at a target.

  Tactile precision in right-handed archery experts with visual disabilities: A pseudoneglect effect? · J. P. Coudereau, N. Gueguen, M. Pratte, E. Sampaio

• 2016
  For Archers Published later

  29 Irish archers, all shooting recurve and holding the Master Bowman classification, against 30 people who do not shoot: bisecting lines on paper, the archers reduced their error in both directions, 0.26 millimetres to the left against 1.76 (F = 43.39, p < 0.001, partial eta squared 0.43) and 0.04 to the right against 0.47 (F = 11.96, p = 0.001).

  The Impact of Expertise in Archery on the Attentional Biases of Perceptual and Representational Pseudoneglect · Kate A. Forte

• 2016
  For Archers Published later

  In the bells cancellation test the archers spread their marks symmetrically, centre of cancellation 0.00 against -0.15 in the controls (p = 0.04). With letters the result does not hold: no difference in the first experiment (p = 0.51), a borderline one in the second, with a different control group (p = 0.05).

  The Impact of Expertise in Archery on the Attentional Biases of Perceptual and Representational Pseudoneglect · Kate A. Forte

• 2016
  For Archers Published later

  In a computer visual search the archers told the target apart from distractors better, with a sensitivity index of 4.08 against 3.09, and with the target present they answered correctly 28.8 times out of 30 against 27.2. They did not pay for accuracy with speed: response times for correct answers were the same, 911 against 964 milliseconds (p = 0.47).

  The Impact of Expertise in Archery on the Attentional Biases of Perceptual and Representational Pseudoneglect · Kate A. Forte

• 2016
  For Archers Published later

  Walking 20 times through a doorway only two centimetres wider than their body, the archers avoided the poles 19.55 times against 18.43 (F = 24.71, p < 0.0001). The difference lies entirely in the bumps on the right, 0.38 against 1.33; on the left both groups rarely touched (p = 0.08).

  The Impact of Expertise in Archery on the Attentional Biases of Perceptual and Representational Pseudoneglect · Kate A. Forte

• 2016
  Context Archers Published later

  The two groups were equal on the general tests: estimated IQ 111.6 against 110.8 (p = 0.71), everyday lapses 38.4 against 34.5 (p = 0.07), Trail Making B 40.6 against 40.4 seconds (p = 0.94). The difference does not come from a gap in intelligence or executive function.

  The Impact of Expertise in Archery on the Attentional Biases of Perceptual and Representational Pseudoneglect · Kate A. Forte

• 2016
  Context Archers Published later

  In the second experiment, picking on a computer the centre of a plain line shown for two seconds, the printed table gives the archers a larger leftward offset than the controls, -7.2 against -1.45 (p = 0.01), the opposite of the paper test, while the text says the archers chose closer to the centre. The thesis does not make clear which reading is correct, so this result counts neither for nor against.

  The Impact of Expertise in Archery on the Attentional Biases of Perceptual and Representational Pseudoneglect · Kate A. Forte

• 2016
  Context Archers Published later

  When the line has to be remembered rather than looked at, the two groups do not differ (-5.13 against -3.28, p = 0.41), and there is no overall effect of group (p = 0.11). There is, however, an interaction between group and condition (p = 0.019): only in the archers do the answers from memory differ from those made by sight, and only on them does the Müller-Lyer illusion work, when they look at the line.

  The Impact of Expertise in Archery on the Attentional Biases of Perceptual and Representational Pseudoneglect · Kate A. Forte

Status history

1. 2006 Contradicted The first comparison of archers and non-archers on how they judge space is a touch task, and it involves twenty blind men. Feeling for the centre of a small rod with a finger, the ten archers erred more than the ten who did not shoot, 1.23 against 0.98, and shifted the centre to the left while the others stayed in the middle. The authors had expected the opposite. It is a single small study on a task far removed from aiming, and it goes against the claim: contradicted.
2. 2016 Contested A master's thesis brings the first visual comparison: 29 good Irish archers, all shooting recurve, against 30 people who do not shoot. The archers bisected a line on paper with far smaller errors, 0.26 millimetres against 1.76 to the left, told the target apart from distractors better, with a sensitivity of 4.08 against 3.09, and walked through a narrow doorway almost always without touching it; on intelligence and executive function tests the two groups were equal. Some things in the thesis do not add up, because letter cancellation changes result between the two experiments and one table contradicts the text. With one visual study in favour and one touch study against, the studies on archers point in opposite directions: contested.

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