Who said D&D is just a time-wasting hobby? I've just read an interesting summary of a new study. A cognitive scientist mentioned in casual dinner conversation that one of the open questions in his field is whether people fix their gaze on people's eyes, or on the center of their faces, where the eyes just happen to be.

The researcher's high-schooler son pointed out that many D&D monsters have eyes in places other than the center of their faces. (So do a fair number of horror movie monsters, but I guess the kid wasn't into that.) So they did an experiment: they hooked up a bunch of victims undergrads into gaze-monitoring kit, and showed them a variety of pictures from the D&D Monster Manual. It turns out that while gazes initially went to the center of the head, viewer focus shifted to the eyes as soon as they figured out where those eyes were.

The press release/news article is here. I am amused.

Posted by: Boviate at 01:14 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 163 words, total size 1 kb.

Posted by: Boviate at 10:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 5 words, total size 1 kb.