New equipment and intuitive interfaces cannot eliminate the work required to integrate complex systems. Hawley and Swehla make that point in their discussion of the cognitive and sociotechnical challenges created by network-enabled mission command. The same underlying issue applies to the shot process: adding information and equipment increases the demands placed on the person who must perceive, decide, and act.
This article examines the “nerd” side of using a firearm. The objective is to provide evidence-based reasons for developing proficiency, particularly when a weapon must be used alongside communications, information systems, and other competing tasks.
What Is Cognitive Load?
Hawley and Swehla describe cognitive load in terms of the combined mental demands placed on people operating within an increasingly complex mission-command environment. Although their focus is mission-command systems, the concept also applies to shooting and tactical decision-making.
Working memory can be compared loosely to a computer’s RAM: it supports the information being actively processed. As more tasks and information compete for attention, performance may slow or degrade. Miller’s 1956 paper introduced the well-known “seven, plus or minus two” concept. Later research has refined and challenged a simple fixed-capacity interpretation, but the practical point remains useful: attention and working memory are limited.
Cognitive Load and the Shot Process
The more conscious attention a shooter must devote to the mechanics of the shot process under stress, the less attention remains for other demands. Additional processing can increase response time and contribute to missed shots or engagement of the wrong target.
Fox and colleagues compared less-experienced ROTC cadets with experienced SWAT personnel during engagements involving threat and non-threat targets. As the task imposed greater cognitive demands through additional non-threat targets, the less-experienced shooters took longer to acquire and engage the threats.
This may sound like common sense, but cognitive load is not limited to the shooting task. It includes everything competing for attention: radio traffic, movement, teammates, bystanders, equipment, navigation, visual information, and the need to interpret what is happening. Even an everyday activity such as trying to follow a television program while holding a conversation demonstrates how competing information can divide attention. Texting while driving illustrates the more serious consequences of overload and fixation.
Information Can Compete With Recognition
The problem is especially relevant to military personnel and law-enforcement officers. Scribner examined the effect of cognitive load on soldiers’ shooting performance and friendly-target engagements. In the study, soldiers solved simple arithmetic problems while engaging targets. Even that additional task made identifying non-threat targets more difficult.
Anything that draws attention away from assessing the environment and correctly identifying a target becomes part of the operator’s mental workload. The relevant question is not merely whether a person can operate each individual system, but whether they can manage the combined demands without losing awareness or making an unacceptable decision.
Proficiency Preserves Attention
One way to reduce the burden created by several simultaneous demands is to improve performance on the individual tasks. Brown and Bennett observed that practice can shift aspects of performance toward automaticity, allowing a practiced task to consume fewer attentional resources.
This does not make complex performance literally automatic or remove the need for judgment. It means that a well-developed shot process generally requires less conscious management than an unfamiliar or poorly practiced one. The shooter can devote more attention to perception, communication, target discrimination, movement, and changing conditions.
Train Beyond Isolated Mechanics
Information systems will continue to become more common. Personnel who carry weapons professionally will be expected to manage more inputs, not fewer. Developing technical proficiency is therefore necessary, but it is only the first layer.
Training should also require shooters to maintain awareness while processing relevant information. Isolated drills can refine component skills. Decision-making and scenario exercises can then test whether those skills remain available while attention is divided. The goal is not to become better at superficial “multitasking,” but to manage priorities, recognize relevant cues, and avoid fixation.
The Practical Conclusion
Cognitive load is the combined demand placed on limited attention and working memory. Equipment, communications, environmental information, and the shot process all compete for those resources. Developing the weapon skills beyond mere competence reduces the attention required for their execution, leaving more capacity for the decisions that determine whether and how the weapon should be used.
Technical proficiency alone cannot guarantee sound decisions. It does, however, provide more mental room to recognize the problem, discriminate between threats and non-threats, and respond to the information that matters.
References
- Brown, S. B., and Bennett, E. D. (2002). “The Role of Practice and Automaticity in Temporal and Nontemporal Dual-Task Performance.” Psychological Research, 66, 80–89. https://doi.org/10.1007/s004260100076
- Fox, A. B., et al. (2017). “Does Cognitive Load Alter Target Acquisition and Engagement Strategies in Tactical Shooters?” International Journal of Exercise Science: Conference Proceedings, 8(5). Western Kentucky University.
- Hawley, J. K., and Swehla, M. W. (2018). The New Equipment Is Here, Now Comes the Hard Part: Cognitive and Sociotechnical Challenges in Network-Enabled Mission Command. U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Human Research and Engineering Directorate.
- Miller, G. A. (1956). “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.” Psychological Review, 63(2), 81–97. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0043158
- Scribner, D. R. (2002). The Effect of Cognitive Load and Target Characteristics on Soldier Shooting Performance and Friendly Targets Engaged. U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Human Research and Engineering Directorate.
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