Think before You Shoot: The Relationship between Cognition and Marksmanship

Abstract : In recent years, psychologists have begun to explore the relationship between cognition and sport performance, specifically the role of mental imagery in performance. One relatively unexplored learned skill, however, is marksmanship. The objectives of this exploratory study were 1) to document the relationship between cognitive processes and marksmanship performance and 2) to test the statistical validity of a friend/foe detection task as a measure of decision making (DM). Ninety US Army active duty Soldiers and Reservists completed a cognitive test battery including measures of DM, the standard marksmanship qualifying task, and a friend/foe detection task. A correlational analysis revealed significant relationships between marksmanship performance and measures of attention, spatial orientation, and visual scanning. However, the results do not support the validity of this friend/foe detection task a measure of DM. These results support the assertion that return-to-duty Soldiers experiencing cognitive impairments may require additional marksmanship training and re-learning prior to reintegration.