No, thats FACT. You and many others may have become desensitized to it and learned to use it, but it is still a distraction.
It is fact that the more stimulus, the more the human brain and eye has to focus on the worse the results of the overall task. It has been scientifically proven beyond all doubt.
I didn't want to skip past this, but had to run to work...
If it's being used, it qualifies as a tool, not a distraction. The fact that
you haven't learned to use it doesn't change the fact that it's a tool. And it's a tool that you haven't replaced with a different tool in the case of tracers/no tracers.
Stimulus- you're picking the "juicy" parts of the study apart, and distorting the truth by leaving leaving out other parts of the study that don't support your theory. It's a misleading representation of the facts. In your sentence above, it could be summarized that more stimulus is always bad, which is far from the truth...
Stimulus is a requirement for learning. If you lived in a stimulus free environment you'd learn nothing (and you wouldn't need to). So stimulus isn't bad, and could be even argued as being a good "force". At the very least, we'd have to classify it as "neutral" overall.
What you mean (if I may be so bold) is closer to "
too much stimulus is bad". "Too much" doesn't equate to "the more", though. We could actually have "more" stimulus, but still have "too little" to learn the task, right?
I'll let you answer that though. No point in progressing until we agree on the basics.
So when firing, you have to watch the pipper, the target, and the tracers. Compared to just the target and the pipper. And that doesnt even consider all of the other stimulus the pilot has to deal with...
I watch the target, and ignore the pipper and tracers until/unless I find them useful/necessary. Most of the time, the sight is not pointing where my rounds will hit anyway. I've learned that it's not a very good reference (when it comes to my shooting). It's nowhere near as useful as a sight on a rifle or pistol, for example.
And tell me this, how well are you really judging where those tracers are going when there are dozens of them arcing in your view? So not only do you see the bullets on the upward leg of the arc, but you are seeing tracers that preceded those on the downward arc further out, PLUS the crisscrossing on wing mounted guns. It all adds up to excessive stimulus. It is a distraction and unnecessary.
The easy (and obvious) answer is "pretty dang good". I've learned to interpret them, and ignore the information I don't need. Truthfully, I'm not even aware of them most of the time. I see them peripherally, but only pay attention to them for brief snippets of time when I want to know where my misses are going. They're a tool that I want instant access to, even though I seldom pay much attention to them. For example, I couldn't even tell you what color they are off-hand.
I could probably blame them for my very good aerial gunnery, but that would be jumping to conclusions. I'd need to look at the other causes as well, in order to identify the "real" cause (s). Have I practiced more? Concentrated more? Chosen easier targets? Wasted less rounds on targets that would lower my hit%? Has my accuracy really improved due to my tracers, or are they really just a small factor overall?
They definitely don't qualify as a "distraction" in my world, though. They don't effect me negatively (if they do, it's very minor), but they do effect me positively. They even effect me positively when I miss, because they tell me where I missed.
If I get time, I'll even throw together some films to show you what I mean.
****Speaking of which, I'd really like to see some film clips of some of you fighting without tracers. Anyone willing to post some? Not just the "final shot", but some that are representative of the "norm", start of fight to finish.
