D&D Monster Study Proves Eyes Have It

sciencehabit writes with this excerpt from Science: "The dungeon is pitch black — until the dungeon master blazes a torch, confirming your worst fears. A Beholder monster lurches at you, its eyeballs wriggling on tentacular stems. As you prepare to wield your Vorpal sword, where do you focus your gaze: at the monster's head or at its tentacle eyes? Such a quandary from the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons may seem like a meaningless trifle, but it holds within it the answer to a tricky scientific question: Do people focus their gaze on another person's eyes or on the center of the head? In fact, a father-son team has used D&D monsters to show that most people will look to another creature's eyes, even if they're not attached to a head."

Comments

Re:Survival Advantage.

[Nyder]

There was a profound and significant bias towards looking early and often at the eyes of humans and humanoids and also, critically, at the eyes of monsters.

Makes sense. There's a survival advantage whether you're predator or prey, it doesn't matter if you can see it, it's whether or not it can see you. Being able to see its head, claws, or gelsacs is useful, but the thing that gives you a survival advantage is knowing whether or not it can see you. If you can see its eyes, it can see you. (The converse - if you can't see its eyes, it can't see you - does not hold unless you're a Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.)

Car Analogy: Same as if you're driving on the highway past an 18-wheeler. If I can see the trucker's eyes in the side mirrors, he can see me. (I'll assume he can't for the sake of prudence, but it's possible he can see me). If I can't see his eyes in the side mirrors, it's my responsibility to position me vehicle in such a way that he can see me, and/or somewhere he can't hit me whether he can see me or not.

So you are saying that if my eyes aren't meeting your eyes, I can't see you? That is so wrong on many levels, I can't believe you said it. Just because something doesn't make eye contact, does not mean it doesn't see you. Unless you are just eyes, then maybe. But your not. In fact, your eyes are very small compared to the rest of your body. You might want to rethink what you said in case you ever need to hide from people. Covering your eyes with hands doesn't make you invisible.

Re:Basic martial arts.

[HPHatecraft]

and many of these guys have never been in a real street fight.

As a consequence, none of them will tell you "here's how to defuse this situation so that it doesn't escalate. Fighting cause you to owe money if it goes to court. You could go to the hospital. The person(s) attacking you could go. Someone could die." And most don't teach how to do this.

They also will not tell you "the complicated stuff you are learning, the spinning kicks, the block-strike patterns, will probably not work". Under adrenal stress, you lose fine motor coordination. Those techniques will go out the window, probably, and you'll be reduced to playground style fighting.

You are better off learning basic, easy to use techniques that are "high percentage". Practice those under pressure.

If you are a pro fighter, veteran cop, etc, feel free to ignore this. For the rest of us schlubs, this is how it is.