Matteo Campagna
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When aiming gets harder, only experienced archers lengthen the quiet eye

1 study · 30 archers measured

ForContextAgainst2016201820202022202420262017, for, n = 302017, context, n = 30
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.

A single study says so, and it says so in the laboratory. Ten British team archers, ten archers from a university club and ten people who had never shot aimed with a joystick at a target on a screen, with random noise added to the sight at two intensities. Under heavy noise the experts lengthen their quiet eye from 2.6 to 3.3 seconds on average, starting it earlier; the novices actually go the other way, from 2.3 to 2.0, and the non-archers stay at 1.2 in both conditions. The noise worsens everyone's accuracy and lengthens everyone's time before release, so the experts' longer gaze is not just the by-product of slower aiming. The limits weigh heavily: the task is not archery, with the chin on a rest and an aiming time three times longer than on the field, and on the field nobody has ever made aiming harder to see what the gaze does.

Also phrased as: "quiet eye and task difficulty"; "steady gaze in the wind"; "experts and novices in the quiet eye"; "final fixation under disturbance"

In practice

Archers are taught that in difficult conditions, in wind or when tired, the experienced archer does not cut the aim short to get rid of the arrow but stays on the centre for longer, and that this calm in the gaze is exactly what sets the expert apart from the beginner.

Evidence

  • 2017
    For Archers Published later

    Computer aiming task with a joystick and two levels of noise on the sight: the 10 British team archers lengthen their quiet eye from 2.6 to 3.3 s (means with standard errors of 0.2 and 0.4), F(1,27) = 11.96, p below 0.001, partial eta squared 0.49, starting it earlier.

    Exploring the quiet eye in archery using field- and laboratory-based tasks · Claudia C. Gonzalez, Joe Causer, Michael J. Grey, Glyn W. Humphreys, R. Chris Miall, A. Mark Williams

  • 2017
    For Archers Published later

    In the same task the 10 university club archers do not lengthen their quiet eye but shorten it, from 2.3 to 2.0 s, and the 10 non-archers stay at 1.2 s in both conditions. Adaptation to the noise appears only in the experts.

    Exploring the quiet eye in archery using field- and laboratory-based tasks · Claudia C. Gonzalez, Joe Causer, Michael J. Grey, Glyn W. Humphreys, R. Chris Miall, A. Mark Williams

  • 2017
    Context Archers Published later

    Heavy noise worsens everyone's accuracy, F(1,27) = 34.48, p below 0.001, partial eta squared 0.58, and lengthens the time before responding, F(1,27) = 7.81, p = 0.01 (in the experts from 16.0 to 20.0 s). The longer quiet eye does not simply follow slower aiming, but the task imposes at least 6 seconds of aiming before the signal, and the response comes after 16 to 20 seconds, about three times the experts' 6.3 seconds from full draw to release on the field.

    Exploring the quiet eye in archery using field- and laboratory-based tasks · Claudia C. Gonzalez, Joe Causer, Michael J. Grey, Glyn W. Humphreys, R. Chris Miall, A. Mark Williams

  • 2017
    Context Archers Published later

    On the field, 24 arrows at 30 metres, the experts have a quiet eye of 1.9 s against 0.7 in the novices (p = 0.012) and take 6.3 s from full draw to release against 4.4. There, though, aiming difficulty was never varied, so the adaptation is seen only on the computer.

    Exploring the quiet eye in archery using field- and laboratory-based tasks · Claudia C. Gonzalez, Joe Causer, Michael J. Grey, Glyn W. Humphreys, R. Chris Miall, A. Mark Williams

Status history

  1. 1990 Not studied In the registry's bibliography nobody had yet measured what an archer's gaze does when aiming gets harder: on the question there is no evidence.
  2. 2017 Reported A single study tries disturbing the aiming point, in a computer task with a joystick. The British team experts go from 2.6 to 3.3 seconds of quiet eye as the noise rises, while the novices drop from 2.3 to 2.0 and those who have never shot stay at 1.2. The noise worsens everyone and lengthens everyone's time before release, so the experts' longer quiet eye is not simply the product of slower aiming. A single study, with ten people per group and on a screen rather than with a bow: reported.

Related

Related articles

Research lines

Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). When aiming gets harder, only experienced archers lengthen the quiet eye (Version 1). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/quiet-eye-harder-aiming-experts

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_quieteyeadattamentodifficolta,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {When aiming gets harder, only experienced archers lengthen the quiet eye},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/quiet-eye-harder-aiming-experts},
  note = {Version 1; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

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