Gender differences and Memory
As a woman, I may be somewhat biased in terms of what could be said to resolve Joan and John’s argument. Despite this being the case, the article heavily supports Joan’s argument of women being better with memory in terms of episodic memory. There are other forms of memory and memory tests but they are not as significant or reliable as episodic memory. Since this is the case, it is somewhat valid to say that women have an advantage in memory than men when comparing what each one remembers. This does not ultimately mean that one should assume that men cannot remember anything. The article alludes to the possible causes of why women are in fact wired in a way that allows them to be able to retain and recall memories more efficiently than that of men.
The article introduces tests done in men and women’s episodic memory, semantic memory, primary memory, and priming. Episodic memory is the memory stressed the most in terms of study and research because there are close to no differences in the tests done between the genders with the other memory tests. Episodic memory is a person’s recollection of a certain time, including the place and emotions that were felt that can be derived from one’s memory. Episodic memory is like an episode of one’s memory in which past personal experiences occur within it. Episodic memory is the best representation among the rest of the tests because its numbers differ only slightly, where one quarter of a standard deviation unit is higher than the results gained from the others tests. It was even mentioned in the article that “although a female advantage in verbal ability may contribute to gender differences in episodic memory performance, it does not fully explain these differences” (Herlitz, 809). The lack of research from tests performed on memory left theorists to introduce two more theories on the gender differences in memory: psychosocial and biological. Psychosocially speaking, memory is affected by how a person is affected by one’s surroundings and how that person can adapt to in terms of the environment one is exposed to. The biology of men and women inhabit certain characteristics and thinking to resemble one another because men and women differ genetically. Silverman and Eals contribute to this theory in their explanation of the gender differences in the recollection of object locations as resulting from division of labor during evolutionary adaptation (Herlitz, 809). Men were the hunters thus having the opportunity to develop their spatial skills and women served as the gatherers and were shaped to develop their memory for object locations. In order for men to survive, they adapted to their job and became physically built to participate in hunter-like activities. Women contributed to the survival of their families but in a different approach from men. Age does not affect the results for it remains consistent across board. Effect sizes for gender vary between visuospatial tasks and verbal tasks but also within task categories.
It was proven from the statistics that women outperformed men on the tasks of the location of objects, picture recall, word recall, word recognition, story recall, face and name recall as well as recognition, and odor recognition. The article claims that women outshine men consistently across the charts in terms of episodic memory and have an advantage in learning new material. Despite this being the case, research is still being conducted to produce tests that accurately measure the efficiency of women and men’s memory. There is a distinction in what the each gender remembers based upon what stands out to them. For example, a test that was performed for men and women displayed differing people and objects that were remembered the most or not at all from each gender. To clarify, each gender remembers some things more often than others but overall there is no set of things that one remembers more than the other. Males dominant in visuospatial tasks: the visual perception of how objects spatially relate to one another. Women excel in the field of recollection in episodic memory which is associated with object location but at a specific time and place. Men and women show their strengths through different parts of memory recognition meaning that one gender does not overpower the other in terms of who can remember the most.
Joan says that she can remember what her and John said to one another when they first met. This specific recollection that Joan made is a quality of women that enables them to strongly recall, apart from the other memories, memories associated with emotion or a very personal experience. The memory that Joan has presented to support her claim is also greatly supported by the theory of how men and women were divided in labor. Episodic memory allows us to remember certain objects, people, or things at a certain time and place. It was discussed in the article that in the past when women were the gatherers, the women would be forced to adapt to remember where the food in which they obtained was located in (Herlitz, 809). Remembering the location of the food that is safe to eat contributes to the survival of women. It is inferred that based on the biological explanations, the reason why Joan recalled the memory of what her and John said to each other when they first met is because the women’s brain operates in a way that most strongly attracts the women towards memories that hold great emotional attachment. Women are gravitated towards this attraction because women are nurturing and feeling beings. On the other hand, John in this situation cannot remember this type of memory because he is wired differently. John had said he was able to remember the route from their old apartment to their old favorite restaurant. This proposes the idea that is very common of men having a better sense of direction than women. The actual reason behind this is supported in the article’s discussion of men scoring higher than women in terms of recollection associated with spatial relationship between objects (Herlitz, 809). John probably could not have remembered when Joan and him moved into their old apartment but could remember the directions from that old apartment to the old favorite restaurant because of how John is biologically adapted. This adaptation allowed men in the past hunt efficiently as well as to travel far distances to mate with many women also resulting in men’s physical advantage against women.
I conclude that my answer to Joan and John’s conflict is that men and women retain somewhat the same amount of information but from different perspectives in terms of survival. In today’s society there are no actual hunter and gatherers but men and women still show qualities that are associated with hunters and gatherers. Both serve the same purpose in what their memory retains but results display that women are more inclined to remember better in terms of their episodic memory because their perspective is more related and relevant to current times. Men nowadays do not go out hunting for food so their memory of what they are wired to recollect is not as strong as the memory of women. The memory of women is still somewhat relevant because the location of objects is used in everyday life and in today’s society. Women hold an advantage in episodic memory but tests are still being conducted to further the the research of this phenomenon.
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