Matteo Campagna
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Expert archers keep their gaze steadier than less experienced archers, even when distracted

1 study · 14 archers measured

ForContextAgainst201820202022202420262019, for, n = 142019, context, n = 14
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, from Korea in 2019, and it points the way the claim does. Seven archers from the national team that had won Olympic gold in 2016 and seven university archers with no national competition experience watch, with a system that records eye movements, a film of the shot recorded from the archer's point of view. Overall the national archers make longer fixations, and in both groups the longest fall during aiming, about 5.7 seconds; at aim without distractors, however, the two groups make the same number of saccades, and according to the authors an earlier pilot study of theirs had also found no differences in that phase. When a distractor appears during the aim, a beep or a few coloured circles around the sight, the university archers make more fixations (3.25 against 2.47 with the circles) and more saccades (5.08 against 3.57), while the national archers hold longer fixations, about 2.4 seconds against 1.8. The visual distractor is no more disruptive than the sound. Three limits weigh on this: the archers sit in front of a screen and do not shoot; the second part has no aiming trial without a distractor to compare against, so what it shows is that the national archers have a steadier gaze under distraction, not that distraction moves them less, and the difference seems to appear with the distractor rather than hold at all times; and the analysis counts more observations than there are archers, fourteen in all. Nobody has linked that gaze to the score.

Also phrased as: "steady gaze at aim"; "ignoring distractions in competition"; "an archer's visual focus"; "eyes on the centre whatever happens"

In practice

Archers are taught that at aim the eyes must stay on the centre whatever happens around them, and that being able to ignore the noise of the shooting line is one of the things that set top archers apart.

Evidence

  • 2019
    For Archers Published later

    7 Korean national team archers and 7 university archers watch, with an eye tracker, a 34-second film of the shot divided into six phases: the national archers have longer fixations overall (group effect F(1, 72) = 15.54, p < 0.001), and in both groups the longest fixations are at aim, 5,666.57 ± 359.60 ms, against 575 in the wait, 746 on entering the line, 1,231 at nocking and 1,384 during the draw. No interaction between group and phase on duration; on the number of saccades, by contrast, the two groups do not differ in the aiming phase.

    Visual Scanning Behavior and Attention Strategies for Shooting Among Expert Versus Collegiate Korean Archers · Youngsook Kim, Taiseok Chang, Inchon Park

  • 2019
    For Archers Published later

    In the second part of the study, 20 aiming trials of 8 seconds each with a distractor: a beep between 2 and 4 seconds from the start, or 3 to 5 coloured circles around the sight for one second. The university archers make more fixations than the national archers with both, 3.25 ± 0.13 against 2.47 ± 0.11 with the circles and 3.04 ± 0.11 against 2.54 ± 0.10 with the beep (F(1, 24) = 37.03, p < 0.001).

    Visual Scanning Behavior and Attention Strategies for Shooting Among Expert Versus Collegiate Korean Archers · Youngsook Kim, Taiseok Chang, Inchon Park

  • 2019
    For Archers Published later

    Under distraction the university archers also make more saccades, that is more jumps of the gaze: 5.08 ± 0.31 against 3.57 ± 0.16 with the circles and 4.42 ± 0.28 against 3.37 ± 0.17 with the beep (F(1, 24) = 41.76, p < 0.001).

    Visual Scanning Behavior and Attention Strategies for Shooting Among Expert Versus Collegiate Korean Archers · Youngsook Kim, Taiseok Chang, Inchon Park

  • 2019
    For Archers Published later

    Under distraction the national archers hold longer fixations: 2,387.66 ± 112.88 ms against 1,800.57 ± 69.22 with the circles and 2,342.06 ± 120.57 against 1,857.60 ± 53.41 with the beep (F(1, 24) = 53.65, p < 0.001). There is no aiming trial without a distractor, so the comparison is between groups under distraction, not between quiet and disturbed aiming; with fourteen archers, moreover, the analysis has more degrees of freedom than the sample allows.

    Visual Scanning Behavior and Attention Strategies for Shooting Among Expert Versus Collegiate Korean Archers · Youngsook Kim, Taiseok Chang, Inchon Park

  • 2019
    Context Archers Published later

    The visual distractor does not disturb the gaze more than the auditory one, against the authors' hypothesis: on fixation duration the effect of condition has p > 0.90, and there is no effect of condition on fixations or saccades either.

    Visual Scanning Behavior and Attention Strategies for Shooting Among Expert Versus Collegiate Korean Archers · Youngsook Kim, Taiseok Chang, Inchon Park

Status history

  1. 1990 Not studied In the registry's bibliography nobody has yet measured how an archer's gaze changes when something distracts them during the aim: that the best stay steady is taught, but it has not been measured.
  2. 2019 Reported Seven archers from the Korean national team and seven university archers watch, with a system that records their eyes, a film of the shot recorded from the archer's point of view. Overall the national archers make longer fixations, and in both groups the longest fall during aiming, about 5.7 seconds, but at aim without distractors the two groups make the same number of saccades. With a visual or auditory distractor during the aim the university archers make more fixations (3.25 against 2.47 with the visual one) and more saccades (5.08 against 3.57), while the national archers hold longer fixations (about 2.4 seconds against 1.8). The visual distractor is no more disruptive than the sound, contrary to what the authors expected. A single cross-sectional comparison of fourteen archers seated in front of a screen, with no bow and no score: reported.

Related

Related articles

Research lines

Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). Expert archers keep their gaze steadier than less experienced archers, even when distracted (Version 1). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/expert-gaze-under-distraction

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_sguardoespertidistrazione,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {Expert archers keep their gaze steadier than less experienced archers, even when distracted},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/expert-gaze-under-distraction},
  note = {Version 1; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

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