Adaptabilidade da percepção humana e seu efeito na preferência por paisagem : um estudo à luz da psicologia evolutiva

Abstract

There is evidence that we evolved in the African savannah of the Pleistocene, and this was so striking in the evolutionary history of the hominids that to this day humans prefer, innately, savannah landscapes. Such preferences can be studied in the light of evolutionary psychology, considering that many of today's human behaviors are adapted to a past environment. However, some innate behaviors may be influenced by the current environmental context. Thus, the present study aimed to understand how the current environmental context and the evolutionary past influence the preference for landscapes in humans. For this, we test the following hypotheses: the preference for savannah-like landscapes is innate in the human species regardless of the environmental context people live in; and savanna-like landscapes activate positive emotional responses in people. In addition, we elaborate two alternative hypotheses to evaluate the effect of the environmental context in which people live on the preference for landscapes, which were: the preference for landscape in the human species is shaped by the environmental context in which people live; and environment-like landscapes that people experience activate positive emotional responses in people. The study was carried out in three locations with different landscapes, two rural communities and one urban community. We used as a stimulus twelve images representing the six great terrestrial biomes and two images of urban landscapes. The variables analyzed were the emotional responses and the preference of the participants in relation to the landscapes. Our results did not corroborate any of the four hypotheses tested, suggesting that there is no innate preference for the savanna landscape, nor is there any influence of the current ecological context on the preferences. In this way, landscape preference may not be preceded by evolutionary factors shaped in an ancestral environment. As much as selective pressures have shaped the human mind during evolutionary history, culture may be playing a selective role that promotes faster evolution than evolution at the genetic level. Thus, evolutionary psychologists who analyze human preferences, guided by the idea of the past influencing the present, must be cautious before generalizing their results, especially if cultural variables, for example, are not controlled.