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."

Re:Boobies

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't watch at eyes, I watch at boobs amirite?

Those tits certainly have the look.

Eyes show emotion

[captaindomon]

It has been shown many times in studies that people are able to read a lot of emotion by looking at another person's eyes. Looking at foreheads doesn't give you a tactical advantage, but if you can look in someone's eyes you can see what they are feeling most of the time. You can also see where they are looking, and where their attention is at, which is critical. Of course, good magicians know this and look at the wrong things at the wrong times to mislead you ;)

Survival Advantage.

[Tackhead]

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.

Basic martial arts.

[MRe_nl]

Always look at your opponents eyes, (if they're not highly skilled) they will usually look at an area before making a move in that direction.

Re:Basic martial arts.

[Tragedy4u]

Not true, many instructors (Sensai, Sifu etc) will tell you to stare at the centre of your opponent's chest. The eyes can lie, if look at the centre of the chest you get a better field of view of how an opponents limbs are moving which can allow you to react better against a feint or a true attack.

Re:Survival Advantage.

[Anonymous Coward]

During motorbike training we were taught to position ourselves on the road where a driver would be, i.e. about 2/3 the way in, because (for one reason) other drivers look to that spot when looking for traffic -they instinctively look for another driver rather than another vehicle and further, they would look for their eyes. Worked for me so far.

Re:Basic martial arts.

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Slightly off topic, but this is how you're coached to defend in basketball and football too. Check the opponents center of gravity, not their eyes.

Re:Eyes show emotion

[ideonexus]

One of my martial arts teachers always instructed me to focus my gaze on my opponent's solar plexus so that I could see what their legs and arms were doing in the peripheral vision and to never move the gaze from that point so as not to telegraph my intention with my eyes. Kick boxing ended up being probably the most important class I ever took in my life. It taught me to never get in a fight.

Re:Eyes show emotion

[alexgieg]

It has been shown many times in studies that people are able to read a lot of emotion by looking at another person's eyes.

This is also the main reason most manga and anime authors prefer to draw big eyes. They're a much easier way to transmit emotions than body postures, allowing for a faster drawing process. In fact, one of the ways they to show a character (usually a villain) as having little to no emotion is by drawing small eyes on him, what also serves as contrast between pure lack of emotion and mere introversion (a character with cold demeanor plus big eyes). Lead characters, in contrast, have the biggest eyes in the cast. And if it's a soap story directed towards female teens you'll find HUGE eyes almost everywhere.

As a side note for those who don't know: there are tons of "small eyed" manga. Those are usually directed towards adults. What actually defines manga as a style isn't eye size then, but scene transition, which is based on action movies. That's why supposed "manga" drawn by Western authors usually feels wrong to fans: even though their characters are manga-like, their scene transition tends to follow super-hero comics patterns, with lots of poses, high expectation "halted impact" scenes, and step-by-step slow-motion-like narrative. Hence, not manga.