Originally Posted by
staehpj1
I believe that humans tend to steer where they look. Previous experience mostly in off road motorcycle racing I was taught to see the line that was rideable not the obstructions. That isn't generally as intuitive as you might think and requires some mental training. I found the training served me well in other sports and activities including bicycling especially mountain biking. The context was threading the way through a sea of obstructions, but I think it applies to hitting a single obstruction as well. The term for it is target fixation and I think there has been some study of it. Not sure if there is any real peer reviewed study or not.
Is there a thorough study on the history of the phrase "target fixation"?
I only ask because I know of a fatality that was literally due to target fixation. When I was working on aircraft in the Marines, our squadron lost a pilot due to fixating on the target a little too long during a bombing run. This was the era of dumb bombs. This means it was also the era of true marksmanship when getting a bomb on target relied on the pilot's skill. The pilot had to fly a certain dive angle at a certain airspeed, and then release the bomb at a certain altitude. In fact, there were tables of data for each type of bomb so that you could select different dive angles. Kinda neat to look at...
and just for context, this is one of our aircraft coming back from a practice session. The aircraft was dropping the little 26 pound practice bombs and firing 2.75" unguided rockets (I might be wrong about the practice bombs, but that's what was most probable).
Anyway... our squadron lost Lt. Murphy to target fixation. He was a student pilot, and waited too long to start pulling up after releasing the bomb.
There is a
Wikipedia page on target fixation.
It is broad enough to include pretty much any instance of running into whatever you are looking at, but does say that it started with instances like Lt. Murphy.
"
Target fixation is an
attentional phenomenon observed in humans in which an individual becomes so focused on an observed object (be it a target or hazard) that they inadvertently increase their risk of colliding with the object. It is associated with scenarios in which the operator is in control of a high-speed vehicle or other mode of transportation, such as
motorists,
fighter pilots,
race-car drivers,
paragliders, and
motorcyclists.
[1] In such cases, the observer may fixate so intently on the target that they steer in the direction of their gaze, which is often the ultimate cause of a collision.
[1] The term target fixation was originally used in World War II
fighter-bomber pilot training to describe pilots flying into targets during a
strafing or bombing run.
[2]"
Steve in Peoria