Arousal and activation in a pistol shooting task

Aims: Precise pistol shooting is influenced by arousal, which has been recently defined as an individual’s energetic state at a particular time and is measured by skin conductance level. On the other hand, task related activation has been defined as the change in arousal, from a resting baseline to the task situation. Present study was performed in order to investigate whether previous theories on functional differentiation between arousal and activation could be generalized from laboratory tasks to military skills. Methods: This quasi experimental study was performed on 21 military elite shooters including 4 women and 17 men with mean age of 34 years who voluntarily took part in the study, in year 2009. Skin conductance level was recorded as an index of arousal. Several performance measures including scores, inter-shot intervals, and the total shooting time were also electronically recorded. Data was analyzed using inferential statistical methods including repeated measures analysis of variance and stepwise linear regression analysis by SPSS 16 software. Results: There was a linear negative correlation between activation and all three performance measures. Arousal didn’t have correlation with any of performance measures. Conclusion: Findings of present field study support previous laboratory results and shows that quality of task performance, regardless of its type, is affected by activation and not by arousal.