N. Konttinen et al., RIFLE-BALANCING IN PRECISION SHOOTING - BEHAVIORAL-ASPECTS AND PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL IMPLICATION, Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports, 8(2), 1998, pp. 78-83
This study investigated sharpshooters' strategies to control their rif
le stability during the aiming period. Six elite and six pre-elite sho
oters completed a simulated realistic shooting task (laser rifle), and
their performance was evaluated from behavioral and psychophysiologic
al perspectives. The analysis of the rifle's barrel movement, indexing
the shooter's behavioral performance, supported the view that rifle-b
alancing is an essential determinant of superior shooting performance.
The psychophysiological data, i.e. the brain slow potentials, suggest
ed that the shooters applied different rifle-hold strategies; the elit
e shooters concentrated primarily on achieving a stable rifle position
using psychomotor regulation, whereas the pre-elite shooters were mor
e reliant on the visual-spatial processing. The present study has impl
ications for the understanding of psychological aspects in competitive
precision shooting, as well as for the evaluation of the functional s
ignificance of the electrocortical slow potentials in shooting-like cl
osed-skill sports.