Institute for Futures Studies, Box 591, 101 31 Stockholm, Sweden.
Centre for Cultural Evolution, Stockholm University, Sweden.
Biol Lett. 2021 May;17(5):20210158. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2021.0158. Epub 2021 May 5.
A widespread and popular belief posits that humans possess a cognitive capacity that is limited to keeping track of and maintaining stable relationships with approximately 150 people. This influential number, 'Dunbar's number', originates from an extrapolation of a regression line describing the relationship between relative neocortex size and group size in primates. Here, we test if there is statistical support for this idea. Our analyses on complementary datasets using different methods yield wildly different numbers. Bayesian and generalized least-squares phylogenetic methods generate approximations of average group sizes between 69-109 and 16-42, respectively. However, enormous 95% confidence intervals (4-520 and 2-336, respectively) imply that specifying any one number is futile. A cognitive limit on human group size cannot be derived in this manner.
一种普遍而流行的观点认为，人类的认知能力仅限于跟踪和维持与大约 150 个人的稳定关系。这个有影响力的数字“邓巴数”来源于对描述灵长类动物相对新皮质大小与群体大小之间关系的回归线的外推。在这里，我们测试这个想法是否有统计学依据。我们使用不同方法对补充数据集的分析得出了截然不同的数字。贝叶斯和广义最小二乘系统发育方法分别生成了 69-109 和 16-42 之间的平均群体大小的近似值。然而，巨大的 95%置信区间（分别为 4-520 和 2-336）意味着指定任何一个数字都是徒劳的。因此，无法以这种方式推导出人类群体规模的认知限制。
