Sex Differences in Episodic Memory: The Influence of Intelligence

Herlitz, Agneta; Yonker, Julie E.

doi:10.1076/jcen.24.1.107.970

Cited by 116 publications

(91 citation statements)

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“…1). Such results converge with previous findings that have shown better performance for females in episodic memory tasks (Herlitz et al, 1999;Herlitz & Yonker, 2002). Although this benefit was observed for both age groups, the benefit in memory performance for females over males was more consistently observed in the older adult sample.…”

Section: Itemsupporting

confidence: 70%

“…Previous studies with young and older adults suggested a benefit for women in verbal episodic memory, as well as a comparable benefit for men in the visuospatial domain (see Herlitz, Airaksinen, & Nordstrom, 1999;Herlitz, Nilsson, & Backman, 1997;Herlitz & Rehnman, 2008;Lewin et al 2001). The memory benefit for verbal materials observed in women over men was confirmed in a study by Herlitz and Yonker (2002), who tested young adult men and women in a series of tasks involving the recall and recognition of verbal material, faces, and abstract pictorial stimuli. Their results showed that, regardless of intelligence (measured by the WAIS-R), women outperformed men on memory of verbal materials and showed a slight benefit in memory for faces.…”

Section: Gender Differences In Episodic Memorymentioning

confidence: 48%

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The effects of emotional arousal and gender on the associative memory deficit of older adults

et al. 2011

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In this study we assessed the potential moderating roles of stimulus type (emotionally arousing) and participants' characteristics (gender) in older adults' associative memory deficit. In two experiments, young and older participants studied lists that included neutral and emotionally arousing word pairs (positive and negative) and completed recognition tests for the words and their associations. In Experiment 1, the majority of the word pairs were composed of two nouns, whereas in Experiment 2 they were composed of adjective-noun pairs. The results extend evidence for older adults' associative deficit and suggest that older and younger adults' item memory is improved for emotionally arousing words. However, associative memory for the word pairs did not benefit (and even showed a slight decline) from emotionally arousing words, which was the case for both younger and older adults. In addition, in these experiments, gender appeared to moderate the associative deficit of older adults, with older males but not females demonstrating this deficit.Keywords Aging . Episodic memory . Associative memory . Gender . ArousalOne issue that continues to pervade aging research is the problem of fully explaining why episodic memory declines across the lifespan. It is essential to understand the nature of this decline in order to help older adults maintain functionality throughout their lives. Previous work has suggested a number of contributing factors to this episodic memory decline, including deficits in semantic processing, metamemory, and deliberate recollection (see Light, 1991). Other theories have suggested that episodic memory problems may be the result of global declines in functions such as processing speed (Salthouse, 1996), attentional resources (Craik, 1983(Craik, , 1986, or inhibitory control (Hasher & Zacks, 1988) that have broader consequences for cognition.Of particular interest in the present study is the reduced ability in later adulthood to properly bind and associate items at encoding and to retrieve those associations at a later time, suggested as one potential mechanism underlying age-related episodic memory decline (e.g., Chalfonte & Johnson, 1996;Naveh-Benjamin, 2000;Old & Naveh-Benjamin, 2008a). The aims of the present study were to assess the effect of emotional arousal on the associative-binding deficit of older adults and to consider potential gender differences that may exist in older adults' associative memory. Each of these issues will be addressed in turn. Associative-binding deficit and episodic memory in agingChalfonte and Johnson (1996) investigated memory for complex events and their individual features in young and older adults. Their results showed a disproportionate decline in the older adult group for memories involving the binding of stimulus features (a picture, its color, and its location) relative to the decline in memory for each separate feature. This finding is in line with Naveh-Benjamin's (2000) associative-deficit hypothesis, which claims that a central factor in episo...

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Section: Itemsupporting

confidence: 70%

Section: Gender Differences In Episodic Memorymentioning

confidence: 48%

The effects of emotional arousal and gender on the associative memory deficit of older adults

et al. 2011

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“…Evidence of an increased factual orientation for males has been observed outside the autobiographical memory literature, as well. Although women tend to have better episodic memories, in general, (Herlitz & Yonker, 2002), men tend to perform better than women on some but not all tests of general knowledge (see Rubin, Schulkind, & Rahhal, 1999, for a review). The present experiment also yielded interesting data regarding how males and females relate personal successes and failures.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender differences in autobiographical narratives: He shoots and scores; she evaluates and interprets

2012

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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.

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“…Recollection of a specific action to perform (retrospective component) is likely mediated by the episodic memory system, which is also responsible for the memorization of previous experiences (Kvavilashvili, 1987;Carlesimo, Casadio, & Caltagirone, 2004). Thus, one should expect to find a female advantage in prospective memory tasks due to the better episodic memory reported in women (Bloise & Johnson, 2007;Herlitz, Airaksinen, & Nordström, 1999;Herlitz, & Yonker, 2002). But, considering that successful performance on a prospective memory task also requires other processes, such as monitoring the environment to detect the prospective memory cue and/or checking the passing of time, a male advantage in these other processes (Ceci & Bronfenbrenner, 1985) might balance the female advantage for retrospective memory, resulting in the absence of gender differences on a prospective memory task.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women outperform men in remembering to remember

Palermo

Cinelli

Piccardi

et al. 2016

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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The study of gender differences in prospective memory (i.e., remembering to remember) has received modest attention in the literature. The few reported studies investigating either subjective or objective evaluations of prospective memory have shown inconsistent data. In this study, we aimed to verify the presence of gender differences during the performance of an objective prospective memory test by considering the weight of specific variables such as length of delay, type of response and type of cue. We submitted a sample of 100 healthy Italian participants (50 men and 50 women) to a test expressly developed to assess prospective memory: The Memory for Intentions Screening Test. Women performed better than men in remembering to do an event-based task (i.e., prompted by an external event) and when the task required a physical response modality.We discuss the behavioural differences that emerged by considering the possible role of sociological, biological, neuroanatomical and methodological variables.3

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Sex Differences in Episodic Memory: The Influence of Intelligence

Cited by 116 publications

References 0 publications

The effects of emotional arousal and gender on the associative memory deficit of older adults

The effects of emotional arousal and gender on the associative memory deficit of older adults

Gender differences in autobiographical narratives: He shoots and scores; she evaluates and interprets

Women outperform men in remembering to remember

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