Most women probably have experienced a time when their dad, brother, or boyfriend has forgotten an important event or something simple. I know I have experienced this many times in my life, especially since I grew up with two brothers. There is now a study that shows why women do actually remember more than men in long term memory. Two psychologists from Stockholm, Sweden form this result from their study. They performed the study by showing various black and white pictures of androgynous faces such as ‘female’, ‘male’, or ‘just faces’ to three groups of people. Women were able to remember the women faces more correctly than the male faces (Sex Differences in Memory). Women seem to be able to visually remember things more than men. Women can remember aspects of another woman’s face because they seem to pay more attention to features on a woman’s face rather than a man’s (Sex Differences in Memory). From this study they were able to prove that women were better at “remembering words, objects, pictures, or everyday events” which are known as verbal episodic memory tasks. Men were able to remember “symbolic and non-linguistic information” which are known as visuospatial processing (Sex Differences in Memory). It is interesting that they could find out this much information from this small study.
from: dailyhealthpost.com
Although this study seems interesting to see which gender can recall facial features in pictures, it is not enough information to to completely convince me that women have a better memory than men. Since the study was done with only a small amount of people it could have been due to chance or a presence of third variables. Also the type of people in the groups were not specified, so we do not know whether they were generalized or not. It would be interesting to see if age is a factor on whether females have a better memory than males. I think it would be more compelling to do a study on a group of female children and a group of male children and follow up with them over a few years to see if their memory changes as they get older.
Works Cited
Association for Psychological Science. “Sex Differences In Memory: Women Better Than Men At Remembering Everyday Events.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 February 2008. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080220104244.htm>
Observationally, I am able to notice that women seem to be able to remember more than men. But maybe this is because women care more than men do about certain things. In my opinion, you will remember things if you care more about them. Men tend to be a little more carefree, so they could be more forgetful. Although the study was able to provide results that agree with my logic, I don’t think the study proves anything about women being less forgetful. It could be that the study group was small or more of the women in this study group were intellectual and had a better focus. The men could have been unfocused or bored. There are so third variables that could contribute! http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/271642.php
I’m not sure how I feel about this study, since I am a girl and very forgetful about many things. While it’s interesting, I would like to know how big this group was and the other circumstances that went with the group that they chose. As far as the faces idea, I can see the truth behind that, but I believe its because of a different circumstance. Studies show that we retain the information that is most relevant or important to us, which is why we might remember faces easier (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives/200906/what-do-you-mean-you-don-t-remember)