Cross-Checks - Instrument to Instrument or to Out-The_Window

                    Aleutian Freighter Snowbird at Dutch Harbor Alaska  

I was forced to learn how to use visual (out-the-window) on my first job sailing  mate on the Aleutian Freighter. The Snowbird lacked the  tools needed for proper chart navigation. There no variable range marker (VRM) on the radar, no way to take a visual bearing, no track-lines drawn on the chart so no DR fixes etc.  To navigate the Inside Passage I was forced to learn to have confidence in visual navigation, matching what was seen out the windows and/or on radar to the chart. 

USNS Mercury

A couple years later, when I was sailing third mate on the Mercury  for MSC (Military Sealift Command)  I'd be weaving through traffic in the South China Sea or transiting to Manila via San Bernardino Strait and the captain, a few times,  came up to the bridge to (I assume) check on me. 

The captain would open the wheelhouse door, stick his head in for a look then leave without a word Each time I was always in the same place doing the same thing. Standing next to the center-line gyro repeater watching forward. 

Later when I started sailing captain  deep-sea I did the same thing as my former captain as MSC. When the ship was in traffic or in restricted waters  I'd go  up to the wheelhouse to see what the watch officer was doing. While an experienced Chief Mate might be at the window, if it was a junior mate they were inevitability moving between the chart (later the ECDIS) and the ARPA with an occasional nervous glance out the window.  

There's been two things about this that  long puzzled me. How is it that the transition from representational to direct perception can happen so quickly once it had been forced and why are classically trained watch officer so reluctant to use visual (out-the-window) methods? Why do they use instrument-to-instrument cross-checks rather than the more efficient and powerful visual-to-instrument cross-checks?       

This recent  article goes a long ways to answering that puzzle.

From MIT News: How some skills become second nature

MIT researches have discovered that learning visual  skills occurs unconsciously and once learned people are unaware they now possess these newly acquired skills.

From the article:

The measurements showed that, over time, the volunteers shifted their focus and attention to a part of each image that made it easier to classify. However, when asked directly, the volunteers were not aware that they had made such a shift. The researchers concluded that this unconscious shift in attention and focus was a form of tacit knowledge that the volunteers possessed, even if they could not articulate it. What’s more, when the volunteers were made aware of this tacit knowledge, their accuracy in classifying images improved significantly.

Watch officers sailing deep-sea are required to have certificates showing they have demonstrated skill using both ARPA (Automatic Radar Plotting Aid) and ECIDS  Electronic Chart Information Display System) but but no training given on developing visual skills. That should change.