Visually judging the sex of another can be achieved easily in most social encounters. When the signals that inform such judgements are weak (e.g. outdoors at night), observers tend to expect the presence of males–an expectation that may facilitate survival-critical decisions under uncertainty. The present aim was to examine whether this male bias depends on expertise. To that end, Caucasian and Asian observers targeted female and male hand images that were either the same or different to the observers’ race (i.e. long term experience was varied) while concurrently, the proportion of targets changed across presentation blocks (i.e. short term experience change). It was thus found that: (i) observers of own-race stimuli were more likely to report the presence of males and absence of females, however (ii) observers of other-race stimuli–while still tending to accept stimuli as male–were not prone to rejecting female cues. Finally, (iii) male-biased measures did not track the relative frequency of targets or lures, disputing the notion that male bias derives from prior expectation about the number of male exemplars in a set. Findings are discussed in concert with the pan-stimulus model of human sex perception.

Background: University students are four times more likely to experience elevated levels of psychological distress compared to their peers. The psychosocial needs of university students are associated with high psychological distress, stressful life events, and academic performance. Our study focuses on developing a measure to help universities identify these psychosocial needs. Aims: The study aimed to develop and validate the factor structure of the University Needs Instrument and identify the relationship between psychosocial needs, psychological distress and academic performance among university students. Sample: Undergraduate university students (N = 511) currently studying at university. Method: Participants completed demographic questions, the University Needs Instrument and the Kessler-10 Psychological Distress scale. The University Needs Instrument comprises 30 items within six psychosocial factors (academic support, financial support, support from family, support from friends, practical support and emotional support), each consisting of five items. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis showed that all items significantly loaded on the six hypothesized factors. The hypothesized model was supported by the data displaying This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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