Gender Differences and Memory

Differences related to gender in spatial memory are most widely described and studied of cognitive sex differences. In 1974 Maccoby and Jacklin established that males usually perform better than females in measures of spatial performance, and this discovery has been constantly replicated in multiple studies covering various developmental stages (McGivern et al. 1997; Lewin et al. 2001) and spatial tasks (Dabbs Jr. et al. 1998; Driscoll et al. 2005).

One of the most interesting aspects of the human brain is the ability to remember and to travel back in time within your memory. The documentary, How Does Your Memory Work?, looks into the complexity of memory over a lifetime, something most of us take for granted it says. We learn that memory develops early, but as time progresses, some parts of memory can disappear. We also find out that our memory shapes who we are, including our personalities. Included in this video are interviews of a young guy who was born prematurely with memory not fully developed and a young girl who was a victim of sexual assault with a traumatic memory of her attack.

Additionally, to further support these theories, researchers tend to conduct studies on the famous patient case, HM, to propose the consolidation deficit theory, in which those with amnesia cannot turn short-term memories into long-term memories (Dewar et al., 2010). However, researchers Dewar, Della Sala, Beschin, and Cowan (2010), mentioned that HM’s case does not fully explain why a patient with anterograde amnesia has the ability to get better at cognitive tasks despite being unable to recall having performed those tasks at a previous time. On the same hand, Duff, Wszalek, Tranel, and Cohen (2008) mentioned that most individuals with anterograde amnesia experience heightened intelligence, attention, skill, and reasoning levels (procedural memory).

Memory – what it is, how it works, and how it might be manipulated – has long been a subject of curious fascination. Remembering, the mind-boggling ability in which the human brain can conjure up very specific, very lucid, long-gone episodes from any given point on the timeline of our lives, is an astounding feat. Yet, along with our brain’s ability of remembrance comes also the concept of forgetting: interruptions of memory or “an inability of consciousness to make present to itself what it wants” (Honold, 1994, p. 2). There is a very close relationship between remembering and forgetting; in fact, the two come hand-in-hand. A close reading of Joshua Foer’s essay, “The End of Remembering”, and Susan Griffin’s piece, “Our Secret”, directs us

Ryan, E. (1992). Beliefs about memory changes across the adult life span. Journal of Gerontology, 47, 41-46.

For the purpose of this paper, I will only focus on three hypotheses and three specific elements of the research. First, given that boys are more likely to play video games more often and engage in more psychical activity they should be more adapt to remembering pictures presented dynamically then statically; opposed to girls who were expected to remember pictures that were presented statically. Next, congruent with the gender schema theory, the researcher hypothesized that both males and females are more likely to remember and be able to recall stimuli that is related to one’s sex and have a hard time processing and recalling stimuli counter stereotypical to one’s sex. Lastly, gender-stereotypical stimuli are predicted to be recalled better under intentional conditions rather than incidental. For this research, nearly 160 children and adolescents were presented with 36 gender stereotypical toy photographs that is, they were highly classified as being masculine, feminine, or neutral. In addition, each was categorized based on its function. The participants were randomly assigned to two groups; the incidental memory condition and the intentional memory condition. Half of the participants were first presented with 36 static pictures (SOM) and the other half presented with 36 dynamic pictures (DOM). The participants in the SOM were presented with photographs appearing in the center of the screen for nearly 5 seconds and were

Our ability to retain information from our every day experiences is due to our episodic memory (Berk, 238). This research paper examines the effects of genetics as well as the participants’ personal lifestyles in the hopes of assessing the reasons behind the stability and decline in episodic memory (Josefsson et al., 2012). The investigation is important in understanding the development of our episodic memory by knowing what effects our ability to retain every day experiences. It may also help our understanding of how information processing can be improved or stabilized.

Age and gender play a role in the rate of recognition of known and unknown stimuli. Francois Guillem and Melody Mograss (2004) conducted a continuous recognition memory task using male and female participants between the ages of 20-35 years old. Participants were shown pictures of unfamiliar faces and asked to identify whether they had or had not previously seen the face. Research shows that females have a faster recognition rate for both familiar and unfamiliar stimuli (Guillem et al,2004). Males process information or stimuli differently than females, in part due to brain structure and activation of neurons, but also because males tend to maintain less information and are quick to make decisions while females are more detail-oriented

The study first appreciates that sex differences in psychological functions exist, but the objective is to gauge the performance as the individual progresses with age. The study used rhesus monkeys that were subjected to various tasks with varying complexities. The results revealed that the perfomance of the male spatial memory was superior to the that of the female subjects at the beginning of the study. However, the rate at which the performance declined was higher for the male subjects than the females. Working memory, however, was the only component of the study that showed a difference. The study then concluded that males have an advantage in spatial working memory at a young age, but the decline is more significant with progression in

When presented with a list of words women will remember more words from the emotional list than the neutral word list when compared to men.

Twenty undergraduate students (10 males and 10 females) between the ages of 18 and 22 years old participated in the study. Each participant attended Towson University and was selected based on availability. Participants had to identify as male or female and be at least 18 years or older. Participants could not participate in the study if they are taking any medication that influenced their ability to focus on specific tasks.

Many previous research studies show that there is a difference in the episodic memory of males and females. According to a study done by Rehman and Hertitz (2007), women were able to recall more faces (of both males and females) than men. This was true whether the faces were male or female faces.

Tulving's 1972 theory of memory pulls a similarity between general knowledge semantic memory and memory for events episodic memory. Neuropsychological studies have examined each type of memory in separation, nonetheless theorists have long claimed that these two forms of memory are interdependent. The studies demonstrates that these forms of memory can disturb each other both at encoding and at retrieval. In general, neuropsychological studies of episodic and semantic memory have focused on divisions that is, circumstances in which one form of memory is lessened while the other is fairly whole. This methodology is in agreement with neuropsychological tradition, and it has clearly been successful. By showing that episodic and semantic memory

There are many differences when it comes to comparing men and women. There are not only physical appearance differences but there are also internal working mechanisms of their bodies that are different. Men and women differ genetically, physiologically, and psychologically (Loftus, Banji, & Schooler, 1987). Not only does battle of the sexes occur in real world situations, scientists argue back and forth as to which should be superior in terms of cognitive functioning and especially memory ability. Researchers have determined that memory ability may be influenced by differences in interest and expectations along with physiology capabilities (Loftus et al., 1987). It is also believed that cognitive style may play a role in what one remembers. Cognitive style is the psychological differences in a person’s manner of cognitive functioning particularly acquiring and processing information (Kozhevnikov, 2007). During early childhood, memory starts to develop by way of conversation with others primarily caregivers and parents (Dahl, 2014). It is believed that children there were asked for more detail in their story’s later in life could recall those earlier memories in more detail. Research has shown that parents spend more time introducing new information with girls and with boys more time talking about what to do with their feelings (Dahl, 2014). This could be in part because culture along with society tends to have gender

Memory makes us. It is, to an extent, a collection of unique and personal experiences that we, as individuals, have amassed over our lifetime. It is what connects us to our past and what shapes our present and the future. If we are unable remember the what, when, where, and who of our everyday lives, our level of functioning would be greatly impacted. Memory is defined as or recognized as the “sum or total of what we remember.” Memory provides us the ability to learn and adjust to or from prior experiences. In addition, memory or our ability to remember plays an integral role in the building and sustaining of relationships. Additionally, memory is also a process; it is how we internalize and store our external environment and experiences. It entails the capacity to remember past experiences, and the process of recalling previous experiences, information, impressions, habits and skills to awareness. It is the storage of materials learned and/or retained from our experiences. This fact is demonstrated by the modification, adjustment and/or adaptation of structure or behavior. Furthermore, we as individuals, envision thoughts and ideas of the present through short-term memory, or in our working memory, we warehouse past experiences and learned values in long-term memory, also referred to as episodic or semantic memory. Most importantly, memory is malleable and it is intimately linked to our sense of identity and where we believe we belong in the world.