As we can observe on this very thread, we can bear witness to how something as irrefutable as a Scientific Law slowly degrades.
Noload makes an excellent argument, showing how a trainer uses examples about an operator failing due to too many choices. This has nothing to do with Hick's Law. This issue is why is this operator failing? Which is more likely due to improper training than Hick's Law acting insidiously behind the operator.
This is what I mean about people in the commercial martial arts arena and 'Defensive Tactics' venues--something I believe Mr. Walter Hochheim is attempting to address in his original article that I am attempting to clarify.
A little knowledge is very dangerous when very specific laws, principles, and concepts are only lightly comprehended and then applied in ways for which they are not designed.
The truth of the matter is cognitive, affective and psychomotor skill learning is highly complex, and to date, having been in this crazy--insane arena since 1963, I personally observe far more improperly deployed training paradigms attempting to address the context of horrific human violence, than are appropriately engaged. This is across the board, obviously at the commercial level, and certainly within DoD and the Law Enforcement community struggling with their budget constraints.
Learning motor skills, for example, relies on three distinct principles of transfer of what is learned.
There is positive transfer where previously learned motor skills aids in the development of new skills; negative transfer, where previously learned motor skills inhibits the acquisition of new motor skills to be learned; and zero transfer, where previously learned motor skills has no impact, whatsoever on learning new skills--like how swimming does nothing to prepare you for driving an automobile.
Transference of motor skills cannot accurately be assumed to occur without careful observation and detailed assessments in what is being taught and whether or not what is being taught is actually being learned for its specific contextual environment. (Richard A. Magill; MOTOR LEARNING: CONCEPTS & PRINCIPLES, (Brown and Benchmark, 1993 p. 72).
Transference of motor skills can be positive, overall, but with negative transfer specifics for which a trainer may not be aware. Something as subtle as, say, a forehand action with a blade or stick that involves a learned pattern of snapping the wrist, will momentarily impeded a forearm action where the wrist must now be kept locked to execute a powerful, impacting blow (Magill, 72).
Such negative nuances are usually temporary and usually easily corrected with CORRECT PRACTICE in the context mimicking the actual operational environment. But we can see that if a trainer is not aware of this negative transfer, nor the practitioner, when the need for a powerful blow is forthcoming, what will occur is what is known--the wrist snap--and the practitioner will wonder why the application failed.
All the above has nothing to do with Hick's Law, but with the complexity of transfer of learning--which is highly complex at both cognitive and psychomotor skill levels of learning.
As to why any application fails, without detailed documentation and observation of the entire contextual event, there maybe no reliable and valid way to pick out the multiple, interacting relationships forthcoming to which the participants and trainers are aware or not. What happens is we guess what's wrong and through trail and error, may or may not correct the problem.
Here is something that must be fully understood about training and when designing appropriate paradigms, addressing variables that must be addressed--all exclusive of Hick's Law. This was an argument made way back in 1979, found in Cermak's and Craik's anthology LEVELS OF PROCESSING IN HUMAN MEMORY, where Bransofrd, Franks, Morris and Stein wrote in the chapter addressing constraints on learning and memory (pp. 331-354), Hillsdale, NJ: Erlaum: ...the actual 'test' for learning a new skill can ONLY be found in the actual performance of the skill, accomplishing the actual goal needing achieved in the real performance context in which the skill's goal must be accomplished. Sounds like pure common sense, doesn't it?!
Essentially, we must prepare specifically for the context in which we want to operate through the kinds of training which fully addresses the actual needs found in this operational context. The proof in any training paradigm's true efficiency and effectiveness is found in whether or not we can perform the necessary skills we are learning in training to the real world, operational context. If we are failing, it isn't due to Hick's Law and the number of choices, but from the ENTIRE training paradigm not addressing the issues it needs to address. It could be as obvious as practitioners learning only closed skills in a fixed learning environment that has become too predictable, developing an automaticity that is inappropriate for and will not transfer to a variable, unpredictable context demanding novel, open skills.
When an operator fails in real world OPS--the first thing to look at is the operator, and then the ENTIRE preparation phase that operator under went.
My whole argument for this article was to address the fact that Hick's Law is LAW and cannot be refuted, killed, kicked about or demeaned. IT IS LAW...like the Law of Gravity, and that was my specific focus of this write up, and to clarify what Hick's Law entails.
That people and trainers do not understand this LAW, attempt to ignore it, deny its influence on reaction times, misrepresent it, and blame it for their own incompetence and ignorance, is S.O.P. for being human, especially in this billion dollar environment of commercial martial arts and 'defensive training' where so many want their share of the monetary pie, which really is not the issue of this thread.
Simply put, anyone who uses Hick's Law, blaming it for operational failure is already telling me, they have no idea what Hick's Law is about. Anyone who uses Hick's Law as a sole foundation guide for developing their training paradigm has not one clue about what one needs to prepare for a potential killing combat arena.
Training for the real world is highly complex, demanding a training context that NOT merely closely mimics the AO, but actually does mimic operational stressors found in this operational environment. If this 'real' context is not established, preparation becomes, literally a crap shoot for success where failure is just as likely as success.
And Canuk: that you have never trained in a stairwell to apprehend and cuff a suspect, demonstrates numerous personal attributes, which are not skills, but innate to your unique biology, as well as having experienced positive learning transfer where past skill sets learned are successfully being extrapolated into a novel situation; and that past training contexts have also been positively transferred, offering a measure of familiarity that serves your purpose nicely. Again--this has nothing to do with Hick's Law of Reaction Time, but approaches not only the complexity of individual genetic predispositions, but also of positive learning transference from past skills and past contextual environments. ONE Cannot argue success, only try to understand why we are.
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Topic: Addressing the Article Hicks Law (Read 356 times)