Abstract

Abstract

Previous research suggest that sex-ratio has a huge impact on family structure, economic behavior, and more. The current study was conducted to explore the effects of sex-ratio context on human selective attention. In Experiment 1, each of the two experimental groups read two different versions of a fictitious news article: a male-biased version and a female-biased version. Then, the difference in gaze cueing effect between male and female cues was measured. Female participants in the female-biased group showed a greater gaze cueing effect to male cue stimuli than participants in any other group. That is, in a low sex ratio context (i.e., fewer males), women were more sensitive to attentional guidance from the opposite-sex gaze cue. In Experiment 2, using a letter probe task, we measured the distribution of spatial attention and also added a balanced sex-ratio group. The results showed that women assigned more amount of spatial attention to opposite-sex stimuli in a female-biased context, and less amount of spatial attention to opposite-sex stimuli in a male-biased context. The results of both experiments show that only women showed attentional effects of sex-ratio context. Female-biased context caused women to be more sensitive to attentional guidance from the opposite-sex face stimuli and assign more spatial attention to the opposite-sex face stimuli. Women in a male-biased context assigned less spatial attention to the opposite-sex face stimuli. The results are quite different from previous sex-ratio studies which state that males are more influenced by sex-ratio. This study was the first to show the attentional effects of sex-ratio, and implicates that sex-ratio influences not only socio-economic variables, but cognitive mechanisms as well.