The Cognitive Capabilities Between Males And Females Essay

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).

However in regards to general results between both genders it was shown that no definite statistical mean yielded notable results (Alansari & Baroun, 2004). Stroop (1935) also showed that women college students also showed a difference when compared to the men and tended to have higher word reading results, but in regards to the genders showed no significant differentiation between both at the cognitive level.

Differences in brain structure between males and females result in important differences in perceptions, emotional expressions, priorities and behaviors. (*) Relationship traits, problem solving approaches, mathematical abilities, reactions to stress, language, emotions, brain size, pain perception, spatial ability and susceptibility to disorders are just some areas in which men and women react differently because of their differences in brain structure. (*) To some scientists and theorists these many influential biological differences between men and women make gender roles inevitable. (*)

In her scientific work Sex Differences in the Brain Kimura analysis several key differences that cause men and women to excel in various tasks and jobs due to naturally occurring phenomenon in the body and

Thus, concluding that the explanation of biological, psychodynamic and learning approaches does influence on gender development. Each of these approaches explains how gender is developed in their own way. From the biological approach, we found out that gender differences are seen as resulting from sex differences. In other words, women and men act, think and feel differently because of differences in how their brains work. These brain differences may result from chromosomal differences and may also be the result of hormonal differences.

The SAT is an exam taken by high school sophomores, juniors and seniors, it measures literacy, writing and math skills that are needed to succeed in college. Male students have been viewed as benefiting from the math section of the SAT. “One test that has played a particularly important role in the impression that male students possess more math ability than female students is the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)” (Byrnes and Takahira., 1995). The authors focused on one question throughout their research they wanted to understand if the gender difference in the SAT were because male students perform cognitive questions more successfully than girls. Male students had the correct approach to answer math questions, they answered the questions in a specific

Bloise, S.M. Johnson, M.K. (2007). Memory for emotional and neutral information: Gender and individual differences in emotional sensitivity. Memory. 15 (2), pp.192-204.

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

Other explanations for the variations include a large amount of estrogen hormones in females, which is the primary reason for the differences in the parts of a woman’s brain. According to Bruce Goldman, a science writer for the Stanford Medical School’s Office of Communication and Public Affairs, a woman’s hippocampus, a region of the brain that processes most learning and memorization, is generally bigger than a man’s and functions in a distinctive way. Better learning and memorization skills are especially important when it comes to schooling, which explains why every two men who earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2010 were matched by three women achieving the same (Rosin 306). This is not the only variations between the brains of each gender; the corpus callosum, the white matter in the center of the brain that helps the left and right lobe “talk” to each other, is larger in females, thus the reason that womens’ brains unfailingly show stronger communication between hemispheres (Goldman). Activity between these halves are important for speech as well as comprehension. Different sizes of different parts of the brain are part of the reason why women are biologically more capable in certain fields of work than men.

The remaining 68% are ranked in terms of an average typical aging participant. The most important finding suggests that the more educated and physically active you are, and if you carry the catechol-O-methyltransferase gene, the more likely you are to retain information from your everyday experiences (Josefsson et al., 2012). Yet those whose episodic memory declines with age may be a result of no physical activity, are overall less educated and carry the allele apolipoprotein E ɛ4. Furthermore, it is important to note that women are the dominant gender in episodic memory stability (Josefsson et al., 2012). Based on my interpretation, it is essential to conduct further research to note whether genetics overweighs our level of education and to what extent genetics plays a role in episodic memory stability and or decline. Also, the data provided a rather broad conclusion but the evidence is sufficient to state an overall answer to the research

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

Also, in her article, Bonomo states, “males possess on average more than six times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence than females, while females have nearly ten times the amount of white matter related to intelligence than do males. One part of a male’s brain, the inferior parietal lobe, is larger than a female’s and is involved in spatial and mathematical reasoning, skills that boys tend to perform better than girls” (Bonomo, 2010); whereas, girls tend to perform better than boys in verbal and written language. Furthermore, “in 2007 a longitudinal study conducted by the National Institutes of Health demonstrated consistent sex differences in the speed of the brain’s maturation (Lenroot et al. 2007). It also showed that boys’ brains develop differently than girls’

The authors discuss how “girls and boys tend to have different cognitive strengths and weaknesses.” Specifically, girls excel at tasks relying on verbal and

2581). The questions of if and how gender plays a role in a person's STM capabilities and working memory is one that has been visited and revisited over time, but has generally yielded fairly consistent results: one sex does not dominate the other in terms of which has a more functional STM, rather, men and women maintain their own respective skills regarding different areas of STM ("Sex Differences in Memory"; Loftus et al. 82).

Knowing the differences in the brain begins to give some understanding on how and why females and males learn differently. There are many basic differences in learning. Like stated previously females are better at verbal skills which makes them better at reading and writing and causes them to use words as they learn, and males are better