New Research From Psychological Science

Independent Allocation of Attention to Eye and Hand Targets in Coordinated Eye-Hand Movements
Donatas Jonikatis and Heiner Deubel

When a person reaches for an object, he or she will often look where they reach. But which requires more attention, the hand or the eye movements? Researchers conducted a series of experiments in which participants made simultaneous hand and eye movements to separate locations. The participants were able to allocate their attention equally to both locations, which suggests that even though hand and eye movements are connected, attention limits do not constrain the selection of targets for hand and eye movements. Based on these results, the researchers propose that there are separate attention systems for distributing visual attention to multiple locations.

Predicting Sensation Seeking From Dopamine Genes: Use and Misuse of Gene Prediction
Joseph Powell and Brendan O. Zietsch

Genetic prediction is a statistical modeling technique that adds together the effects of multiple single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPS) to correlate them with a physical or behavioral trait. This commentary critically examines the use of gene prediction in a recent study in Psychological Science by Derringer et al. (2010) and the authors suggest what they consider to be a more appropriate approach for using gene prediction methodology.

Stereopsis and Artistic Talent: Poor Stereopsis Among Art Students and Established Artists
Margaret S. Livingstone, Rosa Lafer-Sousa, and Bevil R. Conway

Artists will often close one eye while they draw so that they can overcame stereopis—the depth created by differences between the two eyes’ view of a single image—and thereby focus better on certain aspects of an object such as shading. Researchers compared the stereoscopic abilities of art students to college students with different majors. The art students had lower stereo accuracy than the other students did. Also, by quantifying eye alignment through photographs of established artists, they found that artists had misaligned eyes more often than did control subjects, which supports the conclusion that artists have poorer stereopsis than the general population.