Matteo Campagna
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The brain's response to the clicker is larger on the arrows that land near the centre

1 study · 15 archers measured

ForContextAgainst20202022202420262021, for, n = 152021, context, n = 152021, against, n = 15
Each circle is a study: its position gives the year, its row whether it is for, against or context, its size how many participants it measured. Light circles are studies on other populations or without archers.

There is a single study, and it says yes and no at once. Fifteen high-level Turkish recurve archers, with best 70-metre scores between 602 and 661, shoot 1,070 arrows at 18 metres with an EEG cap on and a switch under the clicker that marks the exact moment it goes. The click evokes the classic N1-P2 auditory response in the brain, and the first wave, the N1, is larger on the arrows that land close to the centre of the archer's group than on those that land outside it. The difference only appears, however, when the good zone is drawn tight around the centre, in the first four of the ten ways of defining it, and vanishes from the fifth onwards; the timing of the response and the second wave, the P2, never tell the good arrows from the others. Arrows are classified by their distance from the centre of the archer's own group, not by score, and it is not known whether a larger N1 means more attention to the clicker before the shot or is simply the mark of a shot that was already going well.

Also phrased as: "response to the clicker"; "attention to the clicker"; "clicker and EEG"; "the surprise clicker"

In practice

Archers are taught that the clicker should come as a surprise, that the click should arrive while attention is fully on aiming and drawing, and that a prompt, clean reaction to the clicker is the sign of a well-built shot.

Evidence

  • 2021
    For Archers Published later

    1,070 arrows at 18 metres, with the comparison made within each archer between arrows inside and outside an area centred on the mean point of their impacts: the N1 to the click is larger on the arrows inside the area for the second and fourth of the ten area indices at a 95 per cent confidence interval, and for the first and third at 90. From the fifth to the tenth index, that is as soon as the area widens, the difference is gone.

    Accuracy in Archery Shooting is linked to the Amplitude of the ERP N1 to the Snap of Clicker · Hayri Ertan, Suha Yagcioglu, Alpaslan Yılmaz, Pekcan Ungan, Feza Korkusuz

  • 2021
    Context Archers Published later

    Fifteen recurve archers, nine men and six women, mean age 22.8, with EEG at 1,000 hertz in a window from 200 milliseconds before to 800 after the click: the sound of the clicker evokes the classic long-latency auditory response, with the N1 and P2 waves.

    Accuracy in Archery Shooting is linked to the Amplitude of the ERP N1 to the Snap of Clicker · Hayri Ertan, Suha Yagcioglu, Alpaslan Yılmaz, Pekcan Ungan, Feza Korkusuz

  • 2021
    Against Archers Published later

    In the same study N1 latency, P2 amplitude and P2 latency do not tell the good arrows from the others for any of the ten area indices: every confidence interval contains zero. Together with the N1 telling nothing apart from the fifth index onwards, this is the part of the study that goes against the claim.

    Accuracy in Archery Shooting is linked to the Amplitude of the ERP N1 to the Snap of Clicker · Hayri Ertan, Suha Yagcioglu, Alpaslan Yılmaz, Pekcan Ungan, Feza Korkusuz

Status history

  1. 2021 Contested The only study on the question: fifteen high-level Turkish recurve archers, 1,070 arrows at 18 metres, with the comparison made within each archer between arrows close to and far from the centre of their group. The N1 evoked by the click is larger on the arrows close to the centre, but only when the good zone is drawn tight, in the first four of the ten ways of defining it, and the difference vanishes as soon as it is widened; the amplitude of the second wave, the P2, and the timing of the response tell nothing apart under any definition. The same study gives a yes with the tight zones and a no with the wide ones and with the P2, on fifteen archers and in a regional journal: contested.

Related

Related articles

Research lines

Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). The brain's response to the clicker is larger on the arrows that land near the centre (Version 2). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/brain-response-clicker-central-arrows

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_n1clickerfreccecentro,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {The brain's response to the clicker is larger on the arrows that land near the centre},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/brain-response-clicker-central-arrows},
  note = {Version 2; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

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