Page 176 - Demo

Chapter 7174To conclude, our study contributes to the understanding of how sexual selection shapes attentional processes by showing that Bornean orang-utans allocate their attention to a conspicuous sexually dimorphic trait, namely male flanges. We found this bias for both immediate and voluntary attention, which suggests that both bottom-up and top-down attentional processes are attuned to this facial characteristic. Thus, it seems that the visual system of great apes may be attuned towards stimuli that are relevant in the context of mate choice, as has been previously shown for humans. It is important that we cannot conclude why the orang-utans preferentially attended to flanged males: they might either be attracted to them or be vigilant. Therefore, we suggest that future work could make use of the natural fluctuations in mating motivation during the menstrual cycle. This would allow us to investigate whether the attentional bias towards flanged males increases as a function of mating motivation, which would suggest that the bias is driven by attraction. Overall, this study highlights the importance of understanding the role of sexual selection in shaping attentional processes, not just in humans but also in other great apes such as orang-utans, which may have implications for our understanding of the interplay between cognition and sexual selection.Tom Roth.indd 174 08-01-2024 10:42