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Female Episodic Memory Research Paper

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Introduction

Memory is described as a group of related and interacting processes that enable us to acquire, retain and retrieve information. Information is first encoded so that it can be retained in memory. It is then stored where it can be retrieved so that we are consciously attentive to it. Information first enters sensory memory and if it is attended to, it can be transferred to short term memory (STM) where it is retained for about six seconds and then to long term memory (LTM). Information can then be transferred from LTM to STM when needed and stored again. At any stage, memory can be lost if it isn’t encoded or stored. In order to encode information into LTM, one of two processes must take place. This investigation focuses on effortful …show more content…

The free recall test is linked to the episodic part of long term memory. Episodic is the memory system that stores a series of separate parts or events such as time, places and emotions. One study conducted by the University of Sweden investigated gender differences in episodic memory and suggested that females have a better episodic memory than males (Herlitz, 1997). This form of memory is emotionally charged which is a reason why women perform better as they are more emotional beings (Parkins, 2016). It is also possible that women perform better as they have a higher verbal ability. This increased verbal ability aids an individual in processing and embedding the information received into their LTM (Halpern, 1992; Hyde & Linn, …show more content…

They may have misheard the experimenter instructions for the words that scored points and the bonus points values. Participants may have also purposely changed the results to either improve the results or negatively affect them. This would affect the accuracy of the results and therefore the validity of the results. This could be improved by having one person calculate all the results to ensure that the calculations methods remain constant throughout the whole process. Although this would be a more time consuming process, it would ensure reliability of the

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