Battle Of The Gender: Who Wins The Trophy At Short Term Memory?
Are men and women actually very different? Is there a smarter gender?
Sex is related to the biological differences either anatomically or physiologically whereas gender is a society construct of female and males in terms of norms and roles including the individual’s perception of themselves (WHO, 2016). Although, biological aspects of an individual must be taken into consideration, it is the individual’s perception of himself/herself that later determines his/her behavior.
As far as we can remember, there have been ceaseless controversies on whether it is the males or females that play the dominant role in various domains such as intelligence, creativity, leadership and even memory. Stereotypes about gender differences circulate and are communicated down generations using media, marketing, society, language and culture as a vehicle. Some of the stereotypes are that females are better at verbal tasks and males are better at numeracy.
Stereotypes have shown to play a major role in life. The moment a baby is brought into the world, he/she is immediately assigned into a life of stereotypical gender identity with boys being wrapped in blue and girls in pink. They are treated differently and given toys according to their sex and this continues throughout. Eventually it becomes embedded within them and the society, in turn, influencing everyday life (e.g. stereotypes that men fix things and women do grocery shopping) including memory. These stereotypes have shown to predict the child’s perception of their abilities which have also discouraged women from persisting careers in mathematics and engineering.
In order to investigate these stereotypes and unravel the myths regarding gender differences in short term memory in both verbal and numerical aspects, a recent experiment was carried out at ICBT Campus Sri Lanka among undergraduate students to investigate this very notion.
Short term memory has a limited capacity store which is capable of maintaining unrehearsed information for less than one minute. Whatever we think at this instant is in our short term memory. It has been referred to as the brain’s post-it note or scratch pad. This memory is used to carry conversation, solve a problem or look up a telephone number long enough to dial it up.
The experiment’s sample size included of 100 Sri Lankan ICBT students, 50 male and 50 females ranging in the age of 18 to 25 as this is the average age range that most students enter undergraduate courses in private institutions. This study was done under deception which means that they were not told that the experiment was based on short term memory as this would affect the experiment. Therefore, participants were informed that the research title was “Investigation of Language Skills among Undergraduate Students”. If the participants were informed that their memory was being tested, there was a possibility that they would focus better and will be naturally tempted to process the words thoroughly. Andrade and May (2004) assume that when participants are aware that it is a memory task, they visualize the words faster rather than use their verbal short term memory; therefore, they remember the written form or visualize the text. Therefore, the most likely way to study short term memory is by catching the participants unprepared and unaware that they will be tested on the list of words and numbers.
They were given time slots to meet at ICBT in the morning as, on short term memory is stronger in the morning compared to the afternoons or evenings. The experiment was broken down into two sessions and carried out in groups of 20 (10 males and 10 females). The first session was to test the verbal short term memory by showing them list of 10 unrelated words and then shown a one minute video to prevent them from recalling the information, or it would be encoded in the long term memory. Then they were then given a paper to write the list of words that were shown to them previously. Similarly, the second session was tested with a list of 10 numbers to test the numerical short term memory. A similar experiment was done by Kumar, Jissa and Mukkadan (2013).
Whilst conducting the research, attempts were made to dissuade participants from guessing what the experiment requires them to do by using statements such as, “Please watch the video carefully as there will be questions from them” as the participants may focus on rehearsing the words and numbers from the slide which would then be investigating long term memory instead. After the experiment, a briefing session was held to reveal the true purpose to the experiment and explain the reasons behind the deception.
This study involved carrying out two independent samples t-test. One independent sample t-test was for comparing means of each gender in relation to the words recalled and the other test was for comparing means of each gender in relation to the numbers recalled. The means were compared to assess whether the independent groups (males and females) are statistically different from each other in relation to each of the aspects in short term memory.
The experiment found that there was no existence of gender differences in short term memory in both verbal and numerical aspects which means that there was no superior gender dominating the verbal and numeracy domains. However, this was contradictory to the research findings that either females were apt at remembering words and males were apt at remembering numbers or that females had a better short term memory. These researchers assumed that biology is the reason behind this.
There have been myths persistently circulating that there is a fundamental difference between men’s and women’s brains and that it is these differences that make one gender superior over the other in various aspects such as verbal and numerical ability. Recent breakthrough researches such as a 2015 study by researchers from Israel, Germany and Switzerland have dismissed these myths by examining 1400 people in terms of their composition and found that a very minor percentage clustered on the extreme ends of the gender spectrum of features that is “supposedly” male or female. There were some presumed features more common in females and males but majority of people clustered in the middle of the spectrum having a mosaic of these features. This means if there is supposed to be an existence of differences then people should have absolutely only male or female characteristics not a mixture. There are sensitive men and belligerent women; callous women and emotional men. There is no typical male brain or female brain; one should appreciate the variety of the brain rather than categorizing brains as classes. Its’ just a mosaic of supposedly society defined “masculine” and “feminine” features that make us who we are.
Currently, neuroscientists are beginning to speculate that the males and female brains are much similar than once assumed. Consequently, all the differences either disappear or are trivial and these findings including the present study could possibly alter how society defines gender.
Hence, this research finding implies that both males and females are equally adept at verbal and numeracy aspects and that there is no need of hesitating in pursuing career choices and education. If both genders are given equal opportunities and encouragement in the education and career settings, both genders will be able to thrive in whatever they feel is their identity. Cognitive differences including short term memory are not entirely inherited but are learned from what the society expects how each gender performs and can change when society changes.
. References
Andrade, J. & May, J. (2004). BIOS Instant Notes in Cognitive Psychology. [Google Books Version]. Retrieved 20 July 2016 from https://books.google.lk/books?id=ak9xH15qNVQC&printsec=frontcover&source= gbs_ ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Bouchey, H.A., Harter, S. (2005). Reflected appraisals, academic self-perceptions, and math/science performance during early adolescence. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97,673–686.
Kumar, S.S., Jissa, G. & Mukkadan, J.K. (2013). A study of difference in short term memory in healthy males and females of Kerala [Electronic Version]. Journal of Nobel Medical College, 2, (4), 57-61.
World Health Organization (WHO). 2016. Gender. Retrieved 15 February 2017 from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232363.php.
