Department of Psychological Sciences, Kansas State University, 492 Bluemont Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA.
Department of Psychology, State University of New York - Plattsburgh, 101 Broad Street, Plattsburgh, NY 12901, USA.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2020 Oct;210:103161. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103161. Epub 2020 Aug 22.
It is presumed that people track the sex ratios in their environment (the number of males relative to number of females) in order to adaptively adjust their decisions and behaviors, but this actual tracking ability has not been established. The relevance of sex ratio information, drawn from evolutionary biology and studies of human relationship decision making, is integrated here with memory research (on frequency encoding), perception research (on ensemble coding), and neuroscience research. A series of four experiments provide empirical results to help fill research gaps and facilitate this theoretical integration. In particular, these studies connect details from memory research on relatively automatic frequency encoding of both items and categories, perception research on summary statistics from ensemble coding, and theoretical ideas about the function of these abilities (specifically applied to human sex ratios based on faces) from social and evolutionary approaches. Collectively this research demonstrates an evolved psychological mechanism for functional, fast, and relatively automatic human abilities to track experienced sex ratios in the social world. This sex ratio information is theorized to underpin documented facultative adjustments in relationship dynamics as well as perceptions of social group characteristics. This integrative approach highlights how the coding, memory, and judgments about population sex ratios can both account for a number of existing findings and point towards key further research.
人们推测，为了进行适应性的决策和行为调整，人们会追踪环境中的性别比例（男性与女性的数量比），但这种实际的追踪能力尚未得到证实。本研究将进化生物学和人类关系决策研究中的性别比例信息的相关性，与记忆研究（关于频率编码）、感知研究（关于整体编码）和神经科学研究相结合。一系列四项实验提供了实证结果，有助于填补研究空白，并促进这一理论整合。具体来说，这些研究将记忆研究中关于项目和类别相对自动的频率编码的细节、整体编码中关于汇总统计的感知研究，以及关于这些能力的功能的理论观点（特别应用于基于面部的人类性别比例）联系起来，这些理论观点来自社会和进化的方法。总的来说，这项研究证明了人类在社会世界中追踪经验性别比例的进化心理机制具有功能性、快速和相对自动的特点。据推测，这种性别比例信息是记录在案的关系动态以及对社会群体特征的感知的适应性调整的基础。这种综合方法强调了对人口性别比例的编码、记忆和判断如何既能解释许多现有发现，又能指向关键的进一步研究。
