In the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition the difference between being competent (level 3) and expert (level 5) is the development of intuition.
In Dreyfus’s paper System 0: the overlooked explanation of expert intuition (pdf) he writes that . “Expertise involves pattern recognition”
That’s a very large part of what the brain does, it subconsciously finds patterns in visual information.
The ability to confidently use visual information is why, in similar situations, the workload for an experienced deck officer is so much lower than for the inexperienced officer.
The value of instruments is obvious but in the training of deck officers the power and usefulness of the human visual system is underrated and overlooked.