Gender Differences In Short Term Memory

There are numerous human characteristics that are often thought to be genetically predetermined, or even evolutionarily innate, such as immune system strength, physical adaptations and even sex differences. Psychologists have been interested for quite some time in knowing more about a person’s ability to remember complex events. This curiosity has often encouraged research asking questions about individual differences. Our focus here is on one such variable, gender. Could gender differences play a role in short-term memory? The goal of this study is to examine the gender differences in verbal memory and determine if one gender would outperform the other on verbal memory tasks.
Researchers have been interested in determining the differences
There are two distinct systems of memory in the human brain, short term memory and long term memory. Short term memory is the function in an individual’s brain that facilitates the ability to store limited amounts of information, (and events), for a short time period. Long-term memory is considered to be a permanent means with a potentially unlimited capacity in which to store information in terms of its meaning or significance to the individual. In essence the simplest model of memory process suggests that sensory information enters short term memory, rehearsal keeps it there, and eventually, the information makes its way into long term memory, where it is permanently stored. Information in long-term memory takes a variety of forms. Tulving posited two distinct classes of memories: semantic memory, or general knowledge about the world, (e.g. such as the fact that a restaurant is a place to eat), and episodic memory, consisting of our own personal experiences. In his own words: "Episodic memory receives and stores information about temporally dated episodes or events, and temporal-spatial relations among these events. Semantic memory is the memory necessary for the use of language. It is a mental thesaurus, organized knowledge a person possesses about words and other verbal symbols, their meaning and referents, about relations among them, and about rules, formulas, and algorithms for the manipulation of these symbols, concepts, and relations" (385-86). Branan (2008) reported that several studies have revealed that females have a greater memory for verbal information than their male counterparts, and that females may also have an advantage when it comes to episodic memory, which is a type of long-term memory based on personal experiences (Branan,