Research on autobiographical narratives consistently demonstrates that whereas women's narratives emphasize evaluative information, men's narratives are factually oriented. These narrative differences might reflect gender differences in either the autobiographical knowledge base or the way information from the knowledge base is selected when a narrative is constructed. The present experiment evaluated these two (potentially complementary) hypotheses by assessing memory soon after an event and after a period of 6 weeks, using both open-ended (narrative) and factually oriented (questionnaire) measures. Consistent with past literature, women told longer, richer, more evaluative narratives than did men. However, men recalled more factual information both initially and after 6 weeks and also constructed narratives that were more factually oriented. These data suggest that men and women value factual information differently and that these differences influence both the contents of the autobiographical knowledge base and the way that information in the knowledge base is used to construct personal narratives.

A 5-month-old, otherwise healthy, former 35-week male infant, presented to our pediatric emergency department with the chief complaint of cough and "sucking in" at the chest. The patient was in his usual state of health until 1 day prior to presentation when he developed nasal congestion. Before coming into the hospital, the family noted decreased oral intake and only 3 wet diapers in the past 24 hours. No other past medical history was notable except intubation at time of delivery due to respiratory distress requiring surfactant administration. Past surgical history was significant for bilateral inguinal hernia repair and circumcision. He is on no medications currently and immunizations are up to date. He lives at home with his nonsmoking parents.In the emergency department, the patient's vitals were as follows: heart rate, 137; blood pressure, 94/51; temperature, 36.8; respiratory rate, 56; and pulse oximetry, 97% on room air. Physical examination revealed an infant in mild respiratory distress with tachypnea, subcostal retractions, clear nasal discharge, and coarse breath sounds throughout. The patient was treated with nasal suctioning, and the decision was made to send for chest radiograph.

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