I think training is going to make it less likely you respond with your lizard-brain FFF response, and more likely you make a decision guided by rational thought. That rational thought may be heavily skewed by emotion and/or adrenaline, but there will be more thought going into it than the untrained person.
An untrained person in a dangerous situation is:
- Less likely to assess the danger before it's too late, and so they will be on the back foot already, scrambling to get their adrenaline going for the fight.
- Less used to the adrenaline of a fight (whether from sparring or better from competition) in order to handle the hormone and not let it take complete control.
- Going to spend a lot of mental energy imagining what their opponent can do or can't do, and what they can or can't do, based on assumptions and varying media they have consumed.
A trained person, on the other hand, is going to probably have a better idea of what is an acceptable encroachment into their personal space and where the danger zone is where they could be assaulted, more used to the adrenaline, and is going to have a subconscious understanding of martial arts enough that they can focus higher brain function on de-escalation, avoidance, or tactics and let their training handle the details of how martial arts works.
What I mean by this last piece is someone who is untrained is going to be trying to figure out what's realistic based on what they've seen in movies. They won't know how to separate real technique and strategy from choreography, or how to figure out what a human could actually do vs. what CGI, wires, and clever camera angles and quick cuts allow it to
look like a human can do vs. what they themselves can actually do with limited training. They're going to be scrambling to come up with every possibility of what an opponent could do and try to rationalize what is realistic or not, as well as trying to figure that out plus their own limitations on the fly. That's a lot of brainpower spent on imagination that doesn't help in the moment.
Someone who is trained isn't going to worry about that. If your training is boxing, you're more likely to focus on keeping folks out of range, and if they get too close for comfort you're gonna pop em. If your training is wrestling, then as soon as they're close enough to get ahold of, your training will let you control them and take them to the ground where you can continue to control them.
Even if your training is in "less realistic" martial arts like Taekwondo, you're at least going to have a sense of what ranges you're safe vs. in danger, and you'll have experience with techniques coming at you that you're going to have better reaction times than the untrained. And regardless of the fidelity of your training, you're going to have enough confidence in it that you're not going to be scrambling as much as an untrained person. Maybe there will be some scramble (especially if you never sparred), but at least you'll be picking between techniques you've trained instead of trying to analyze a billion possibilities for things you've never done.
neurosciencenews.com
You’re winding us up! Well done…you’re funny 
