Developing Visual Navigation Skills

Many mariners believe that acquiring useful visual observation skills takes many years. In fact, with deliberate practice combined with the rapid feedback and the safety net provided by the screens (ARPA, ECDIS, AIS) improvements  can be very rapid 

This is the first line in the article: Visual Perceptual Learning and Models 

"Visual perceptual learning through practice or training can significantly improve performance on visual tasks."

The article briefly discuses the complexity of human perception, explains that human performance is often far from optimal and can improve considerably with  training and practice. 

Another article,  How some skills become second nature demonstrated  that volunteer subjects showed significant improvements in visual skills but were not consciously aware of it

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.

 In my last post   Developing Visual Navigation Skills - Window-to-Screen Ratio I showed a relatively low-risk  situation where an inexperienced  watch officer could safely gain  confidence with visual observation. The problem is few take advantage of the opportunity, preferring instead to maintain almost constant watch on the screens

Watch officers are required to take classes to obtain certificates for both ECDIS and ARPA, improving visual observation skills is  equally important  but no instructions or guidance is given as to how visual perceptional learning occurs.