A concise introduction to a brain-based training that should be illuminating for firearms instructors.
Security professional and tactical trainer Salomon describes the neuroscience behind firearms practice and offers a training system designed around it.
The author clearly intends this work for readers who carry firearms professionally and notes that any proper approach to tactical arms training must consider how the brain absorbs information and applies it in hazardous situations. In short, this means exploring the neuroplasticity of the brain and the ways in which repetitive tasks can build “neural architecture,” resulting in efficiency that allows for effective responses in times of necessity. Unfortunately, the author argues, most training systems “fail catastrophically” on this crucial issue and therefore don’t allow firearms users to develop long-term mastery. The distinction between training and learning is at the heart of the author’s theories: “Training…is an external function defined by activity. Learning, on the other hand, is an internal function defined by the manifestation of permanent physical changes to the brain.” Salomon aims to solve this problem with his company’s product, the NURO Shooting System, designed to “allow integration of decision-making in response to dynamic stimuli” for people at various skill levels. It does so, the author asserts, by using lasers, along with various types of lenses, to project dots and simple, minimalist images onto existing firearms-training environments, with the aim of activating relevant parts of trainees’ brains to recognize and process potential dangers. Over the course of the book, the author makes a compelling case that traditional training options are inadequate and that a “brain-based” training system would have definite advantages. However, readers should be forewarned that this isn’t a scientific treatise; although Salomon does cite neurocognition studies, he notes that further research is needed to support the superiority of his own system. Indeed, for the most part, this short book reads like an advertorial. However, it’s a clear and well-argued exposition within those constraints, and it’s likely to be a helpful resource for trainers dissatisfied with the status quo and searching for new pedagogical options.
A concise introduction to a brain-based training that should be illuminating for firearms instructors.Pub Date: June 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-952594-11-3
Page Count: 157
Publisher: Innovative Services and Solutions LLC
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
Hiccups aside, a mostly valuable compendium of irrational thinking, with a handful of blanket corrective maneuvers.
A waggish, cautionary compilation of pitfalls associated with systematic cognitive errors, from novelist Dobelli.
To be human is to err, routinely and with bias. We exercise deviation from logic, writes the author, as much as, and possibly more than, we display optimal reasoning. In an effort to bring awareness to this sorry state of affairs, he has gathered here—in three-page, anecdotally saturated squibs—nearly 100 examples of muddied thinking. Many will ring familiar to readers (Dobelli’s illustrations are not startlingly original, but observant)—e.g., herd instinct and groupthink, hindsight, overconfidence, the lack of an intuitive grasp of probability or statistical reality. Others, if not new, are smartly encapsulated: social loafing, the hourly rate trap, decision fatigue, carrying on with a lost cause (the sunk-cost fallacy). Most of his points stick home: the deformation of professional thinking, of which Mark Twain said, “If your only tool is a hammer, all your problems will be nails”; multitasking is the illusion of attention with potentially dire results if you are eating a sloppy sandwich while driving on a busy street. In his quest for clarity, Dobelli mostly brings shrewdness, skepticism and wariness to bear, but he can also be opaque—e.g., shaping the details of history “into a consistent story...we speak about ‘understanding,’ but these things cannot be understood in the traditional sense. We simply build the meaning into them afterward.” Well, yes. And if we are to be wary of stories, what are we to make of his many telling anecdotes when he counsels, “Anecdotes are a particularly tricky sort of cherry picking....To rebuff an anecdote is difficult because it is a mini-story, and we know how vulnerable our brains are to those”?
Hiccups aside, a mostly valuable compendium of irrational thinking, with a handful of blanket corrective maneuvers.Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-221968-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
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