Memory forms an integral component of the
functioning of human beings and without it, life would be a relentless
struggle. Gender plays a significant role in the manner in which people
remember. There is an assumption that females tend to remember better about
past occurrences in comparison to males. McGeown (2012) asserts that females
might attend to as well as encode more information during events, experience
the same rate of forgetting and portray greater capacity to access reserved
event information at recall. Sex difference is a significant aspect in
explaining the manner in which the brain of male and female functions. There
are four classes of memory for which gender differences have been often
reported, that is; spatial, verbal, emotional and autobiographical memory.
Memory is a behavioral area that is greatly influenced by gender differences.
According to Efklides & Moraitou (2013), the content of memories is rebuilt
over time in a fashion that is gendered. This is imperative in explaining as
well as comprehending gender differences in memory. It also informs the
theoretical debate regarding where within the memory formation process that
these differences emerge. The influence of sex on the brain functions is
ubiquitous. Sex influences on brain function are ubiquitous. There are
documented differences between the genders at each level of neuroscience. In
some cases, gender consideration might significantly alter or reverse
conclusions regarding the functioning of the brain. This paper looks into
whether gender differences have an influence of memory.
Historical Perspective: The 1885 Herman
Ebbinghaus’s publication investigating the author’s individual memory is
regarded as the origin of contemporary memory investigations. The recognition
of gender differences in memory would later follow when a British Psychologist
by the name Havelolock Ellis published a study on biological as well as sex
differences in 1894 (Lowe, Mayfield & Reynolds, 2003). According to Ellis’
study, he made an observation about memory stating that the female mind is
superior in the subject of memory. This is a perception that is shared by many
contemporary scientific researchers relating to specific forms of memory, even
though this superiority in memory is not evident in all types of memory. When
it comes to memory, superiority of the different genders is evident in
particular aspects of memory, for instance, where females tend to have a
superior incidental memory of films/movies. Nevertheless, the two genders
portray a significant degree of similarity in intellectual processes of memory,
learning and perception. The rekindled interest currently on the subject of the
influences of sex in memory seems to be driven mostly by neurobiological
investigations that have identified many sex differences in the brain that
relate to memory.
Literature Review
According to Association for Psychological
Science (2008), there are a number of human characteristics that are considered
to be predetermined genetically and which are evolutionarily innate, for
instance, the strength of the immune system, physical adaptations as well as
sex differences. Memory and emotions are constructs that have received
significant attention in the psychology field. The relationship that exist
between memory and emotion has been studied in many researches. These
researches show that memory performance is improved for emotive material. The
influences of gender differences are noted in psychological literature in
language capabilities, memory, cognitive processing style, as well as
neuropsychology. Significant sex differences are determined by psychologists in
episodic memory, which is a typical long-term memory that is founded on
personal experiences, which favors females more than males. Different study
results show that females have an increased chance of excelling in verbal
episodic memory activities like remembering words, pictures or daily
occurrences, while male outperform females in recalling symbolic,
non-linguistic information that is referred to as visuospatial processing.
Additionally, other studies have found out that females perform better in
comparison to males in activities that require little verbal processing, like
recognition of accustomed smells, and that the advantage of females episodic
memory increases when they utilize verbal capabilities while it decreases when
visuospatial capabilities are needed. Whereas the likelihood of
genetically-based variances pertaining to the memory quality of male and female
remains indefinite, many studies suggest that females presently have an advantage
when it comes to episodic memory. According to Lowe, Mayfield & Reynolds
(2003), neuroimaging is able to reveal different neural networks that underlie
task performance between the different genders, both for activities where
performance differs as well as where performance is equivalent. Most
significant is the increasing interest of memory where neurobiological
investigations are carried out using animals where in some instances cultural
explanations may not be able to explain the sex differences whereas in some
cases it seem to disclose “sex specific†memory processes in the brain. McGeown
(2012) tackles the central question on whether female’s superior memory for
events that are personally experienced is as a result of the differences in the
way men and women at first encode, retain, and later retrieve information about
events in the brain.
According to Herlitz & Rehnman (1997),
research shows that there are sex differences in the subject of episodic
memory. Episodic memory refer to memory that relates to autobiographical
events, that is, time, place, related emotions, as well as other contextual
who, when and why knowledge that can be stated explicitly. It comprises of a
collection of past experiences which took place at a particular time and place.
These differences change in their magnitudes as a function of the kind of
material to be recalled. All through the life span, verbal episodic memory
errands yield contrasts favoring females. Interestingly, episodic memory
assignments obliging visuospatial transforming result in contrasts favoring
males. There are additionally sex contrasts favoring females on rambling memory
errands obliging both verbal and visuospatial transforming and on
face-distinguishment assignments. In this manner, there may be a little,
general rambling memory advantage for ladies preference that can increment by
the point of interest females have over men in verbal generation and can be
switched by the male focal point in visuospatial errands. Also, natural
variables influence the extent of the sex contrasts in episodic memory.
Methodology
In finding out whether gender has any
influence on memory, this study utilized qualitative approach by reviewing the
literature that is available on this field. Therefore, scholarly materials on
research studies carried out on this subject were utilized so as to arrive at a
conclusion.
Results
In most research studies carried out on the
subject of gender and memory, there was an illustration of significant
differences between the two genders on the items of manipulation. Most of the
studies pointed out females as having a better memory than their male
counterparts. In addition, males have a more likelihood of having Alzheimer
disease.
Discussion
The aim of this paper was to look into the
influences that gender has on memory. Most studies have shown that females
possess a higher capacity to remember things. This is attributed to the fact
that females structure their memories in a manner that is more integrated as
well as less differentiated style, while men structure their memories in a
manner that is more differentiated as well as less integrated. Popovski &
Bates (2005) assert that females can be able to carry out more feminine
activities better as compared to males. Nevertheless, females can perform masculine
tasks in a better way than the male can perform tasks that are non-masculine.
This makes females to remember things such as names, shopping lists and
conversations in a better way than males. On the contrary, males are superior
in other tasks such as recalling of maps, directions, and appointments. Even
though females have a better memory as compared to males, males tend to think
logically whereas females think both logically and emotionally. This explains
the reason why females have a more vulnerability than males to Alzheimer’s
disease as compared to males. The existing huge differences in memory among the
two sexes results from the fact that females have a different style of thinking
from males. Therefore, females tend to recall more details whereas males are
normally unable to remember specific details. Moreover, psychologists have
found out that females are able to perform better than males in activities that
require little or no verbal processing.
There is a general belief that females are
much better at multi-tasking as compared to males. Multi-tasking entails
carrying out different activities at once that would entail the utilization of
short term memory. If females are actually better at multi-tasking than males,
then it would appear that they as well have a superior short term memory.
According to a study by Knox et al. (2015) on short term memory on the basis of
gender, it was found out that gender has an influence on the short term memory.
The males in this study provided a score of 21.2 percent on short term memory
accuracy whereas their female counterparts scored a 61.1 percent in terms of
accuracy of short term memory.
Role of Emotions in Memory: There are a lot of
complexities that surround emotion which initiate the question as to whether
emotions assist people to remember. Emotional content is very significant in
determining the memory of people. It does not appear to be apparent as a common
rule that people tend to remember events that are emotionally charged than
those that are uninteresting. Research suggests that it is the aroused emotions
and not the event’s personal significance that makes those events easier to be
remembered. Females have a tendency of retaining a stronger emotional images as
well as events at the cost of other information than males. Therefore, memories
are generally treated contrarily depending on whether they are related with
emotions that are pleasant or unpleasant. Specifically, emotions that are
pleasant seem to fade at a slower rate from people’s memories whereas
depressive and unpleasant fade slowly.
There are different ways in which males and
females process emotional memories. Females are better when it comes to
recalling emotional memories. They as well appear to have more ability to
forget information that is presented prior to information that is emotionally
charged. This shows that females are more influenced by emotional content- a
proposition that is compatible with the result that females and males have a
tendency to encode emotional experiences within distinct parts of the brain. In
females, the evaluation of emotional experience as well as encoding of the
memory is more tightly integrated.
Harness et al., 2008 – examined the gender
differences in the working memory. This study was done in two different studies
where investigation on gender differences in modal-specific components of
working memory was carried out by using words as well as pictures as
stimulants. The findings showed that the performance of males and females did
not illustrate a significant difference in the non-distraction condition.
Nevertheless, the distraction condition of females’ recall was considerably
lower in the no-distraction condition as compared to the performance of males.
The findings in this study are consistent with past research as well as point
to gender differences in cognitive capacity putatively that result from
functional neuroanatomical differences. On the other hand, females recorded a
significantly higher recall on the task of visual working memory as compared to
men.
Lowe, Mayfield & Reynolds (2003) examined
14 gender differences in a memory test performance in children and adults using
different measures that relate to short term memory. In their study, they used
a stratified sample containing 1,279 children and adolescents, where 637 were
males and 642 of them were females. An assessment of the sample was carried out
using 14 sub-tests of Test of Memory and Learning. The results from this study
substantially supported the presence of general memory factor. In addition, the
results as well suggested that the general memory factors as well as the
different specific memory factors are equivalent in both genders. This implies
that these factors are basically invariant across the gender nominal grouping.
Since the underlying structure is the same for both the males and females in
the TOMAL tests, these outcomes argue for a similar interpretation of the score
for both males and females. The performance level for the females however was
statistically considerably different from males in two sub-tests; Object Recall
and Word Selective Reminding. These results are constant with the literature
where females are reported to outdo males on tests of specific verbal
abilities.
Conclusion
In conclusion, most of the studies carried out
provides evidence that common perception that males outclass females at
activities that involve spatial memory, whereas females illustrate an advantage
when it comes to verbal memory. Nevertheless, under a close examination, this
male advantage is not available for a set of spatial tasks such as object
location as well as landmark-based navigation. As a result, the gender
differences appear to be specific for activities that involve the mental
representation of space, especially of absolute direction. Effective studies on
the matter of gender and the influence on memory should be carried out so as to
determine the gender that is superior in different types of memory.
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