• Sneezycat@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      21
      ·
      19 hours ago

      Still, while participants moved faster when reacting than initiating, reactors only rarely beat initiators. The extra milliseconds it took volunteers to respond to the movements of their opponents greatly offset any benefit the reactive advantage granted.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        18 hours ago

        “Rarely” is not “never”, reaction is faster than conscious action by the study’s conclusions (just not fast enough to offset acting first), and, furthermore, in an actual shooting situation, the important thing is not to actually be the second to draw, but to provoke your own reaction regardless of whether the signal you react to (ie an errant twitch of the opponent’s fingers) is genuine or a false alarm.

        • theneverfox@pawb.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          6 hours ago

          But like… You can just trigger your reaction yourself. It’s like when you sit there trying to learn to wiggle your ears or shake your eyes… You just have to try flexing muscles you don’t have in the right area until you get it right

          I guess I’ve never really talked to anyone about it, but you can program your own reactions. Then you can tell your body to do it - not move, but tell your body to do the sequence.

          I have an airsoft gun I use to practice it sometimes even, holding it at my side I tell my body to pick one of a few cans, snap it up and fire. I look down the sights, but not consciously - i get a flash frame of the view down the sights, but I’ve already heard the hit before i can process it

          It’s like when a martial artist breaks a board - they line it up and run through the motion, but sometimes they pause for whatever amount of time… You don’t move your arm, you execute a punch, and not even you know exactly when you’re going to move

        • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          18 hours ago

          Yes rarely means not never but are you going to risk your life on something that rarely works?

          but to provoke your own reaction

          Which means like the study showed, you should make the decision and then do it first. Because their reflex being faster will rarely make up for the lost time of you consciously deciding to shoot first.