School of Psychology, College of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK.
Mem Cognit. 2012 Jan;40(1):135-44. doi: 10.3758/s13421-011-0136-6.
From a functionalist perspective, human memory should be attuned to information of adaptive value for one's survival and reproductive fitness. While evidence of sensitivity to survival-related information is growing, specific links between memory and information that could impact upon reproductive fitness have remained elusive. Here, in two experiments, we showed that memory in women is sensitive to male voice pitch, a sexually dimorphic cue important for mate choice because it not only serves as an indicator of genetic quality, but may also signal behavioural traits undesirable in a long-term partner. In Experiment 1, we report that women's visual object memory is significantly enhanced when an object's name is spoken during encoding in a masculinised (i.e., lower-pitch) versus feminised (i.e., higher-pitch) male voice, but that no analogous effect occurs when women listen to other women's voices. Experiment 2 replicated this pattern of results, additionally showing that lowering and raising male voice pitch enhanced and impaired women's memory, respectively, relative to a baseline (i.e., unmanipulated) voice condition. The modulatory effect of sexual dimorphism cues in the male voice may reveal a mate-choice adaptation within women's memory, sculpted by evolution in response to the dilemma posed by the double-edged qualities of male masculinity.
从功能主义的角度来看，人类的记忆应该适应对个体生存和生殖适应性有价值的信息。虽然越来越多的证据表明人类的记忆对与生存相关的信息敏感，但记忆与可能影响生殖适应性的信息之间的具体联系仍然难以捉摸。在这里，我们通过两项实验表明，女性的记忆对男性的声音音高敏感，而声音音高是一种性别二态的线索，对伴侣选择很重要，因为它不仅是遗传质量的指标，还可能暗示着长期伴侣中不受欢迎的行为特征。在实验 1 中，我们报告说，当物体的名称在编码过程中以男性化（即较低音高）的声音而不是女性化（即较高音高）的声音说出时，女性的视觉物体记忆显著增强，但当女性听到其他女性的声音时，不会出现类似的效果。实验 2 复制了这种结果模式，此外还表明，相对于基线（即未经操纵）声音条件，降低和升高男性声音的音高分别增强和损害了女性的记忆。男性声音中性别二态线索的调节作用可能揭示了女性记忆中的一种伴侣选择适应，这种适应是由进化对男性阳刚之气的双刃剑性质所带来的困境做出的反应而形成的。
