Introduction
The issue of gender has been as contentious as the issue of religion. It has sparked worldwide outcry especially from the feminist groups leading to various conventions geared towards solving this issue. The most notable convention was held in Beijing in the year 2000 whose main aim was to form principles that would ensure gender equality in the world. However, as much as human beings argue about which gender is superior, some form of creation cannot be changed. This has been especially so in schools whereby it is argued that boys tend to be brighter than girls, especially in the most technical subjects. Does gender have any contribution to the memory capabilities of human beings?
Gender And Memory
Several studies have been conducted worldwide to resolve this question. A research study carried out by Levy and colleagues (2005) analyzed the effect of sex differences in object memory and spatial memory. The researchers used 2-dimensional objects arrangement to test the object memory. In this category, females outdid their male counterparts in remembering the characteristics and location of objects. However, in the spatial memory, none of the genders outdid the other and this questioned the prevalent idea that men are more advanced in spatial memory as compared to women.
Many studies of this sort had been carried out before with some exhibiting males as being superior to females. Most of these studies have been carried out using rodents to test spatial memory and navigational capabilities. To examine the spatial memory of these rodents’ researchers utilize the radial arm maze which is designed with arms radiating outwards and an inner circle. The researching room is also equipped with extra maze cues.
But the research carried out by Levy and colleagues involved real human beings who were students at Yale University. To examine object memory the specimen was provided with an assortment of recognizable objects which they were expected to study interchangeably. The results were that women outdid their male counterparts. In addition to the radial arm maze test, the specimen was taken to a computer room whereby utilizing the joystick they were required to retrieve rewards from the various arms. In this test, the performance of men and women did not differ considerably. This research deduced that women were better placed in regard to tasks that required recalling of locations and object identities probably the reason women were better explorers of the environment.
In another research carried out at the University of Wayne by Labouvie-Vief, Lumley Jain, and Heinze in 2003 identified the effect of gender and age difference in recalling our autobiographical moments of fear and anger. The results of this research found that more than age gender differences had a stake in cardiac reactivity.
Progressive research has proved that there exist differences in emotional reactions depending on the age of the respondents. According to these researches, older people are slow in responding to emotional feelings as compared to younger people. According to Labouvie-Vief et al (2003, p. 118) gender role socialization in females is considered to place stronger emphasis than the socialization of male gender roles in society. This is especially so putting into consideration feelings related to self assertion, self expression and self consciousness based on the opinion of others. None the less these researches have also shown that the gender differences in regard to emotions are more prevalent during the younger years but as people grow older these gender differences in relation to emotions reduce. This might be the reason as to why younger women are found to be more emotional especially during their adolescent years but as they grow old some issues that used to arouse a lot of emotions in them decrease.
To ascertain this belief the research carried out by Labouvie-Vief utilized an induction process that elicited emotions based on their autobiographical memories. To check on the effect the researchers measured the cardiac reactivity of both the males and females available for the research. The research ascertained that age was inversely proportional to cardiac reactivity whereby older people had lesser cardiac acceleration as compared to younger people. The conclusion of this study was that younger women have lesser control of their emotions as compared to their male counterparts. None the less this control is achieved with age.
Further a research carried out in the University of East London in 2007 sought to establish the gender differences and sexual orientation in object location using three objects assortment. This included assessing object exchange, introduction of new objects and shifting objects from their original positions. This research involved heterosexual men and women as well as homosexual men. Just like in the earlier research carried out in the University of Yale, heterosexual women and homosexual men outdid their fellow heterosexual men in the object array test. Nonetheless in the metric test the heterosexual men beat the heterosexual women and the homosexual women (Hassan & Rahman, 2007, p. 631).
This may be used to deduce that the homosexual men lack hormone that makes their recalling ability the same as that of women. This may be evident through the various behavior that are exhibited by homosexual; men such as attention to detail which is contrary to the normal practice of the heterosexual men.
Another very interesting research was carried out in the California State University by Barkley and Gabriel in 2007. The main drive of the research was to identify whether gender has any effect in cue perception in a visual scene. According to Barkley et al (2007) women showed more interest in land mark cues as compared to their male counterparts who preferred directional cues. The experiment used two pictures which the researchers maneuvered around with by removing and adding cues to test the response of the males and female participants.
Barkley et al (2007) deduced that women were excellent in substituting for the loss of cues within a familiar visual scene as compared to their male counterparts. However in the absence of a familiar land mark women were not in position to identify their location contrary to their male counterparts.
Barkley et al (2007) notes that “women were faster and more accurate at remembering cues presented in isolation especially the proximal and distal pinpoint cues. This outcome couldn’t agree more with previous researches that had denoted that women prefer landmark cues as compared to the geometric cues. This case applies more often than not in our daily lives. I personally have a problem identifying direction using the compass. Differentiating south from south and east from west has been a challenge for women since time immemorial. Nevertheless women prefer to be given directions in relation to an already existing land mark may it be a building or a tower. On the other hand our male counterparts prefer directions in terms of south and east ant this way they find their way around. This research agrees to a large extent with that carried pout by levy et al (2005) which concluded that women are superior in object recognition that men.
This research conducted to establish gender differences in prefrontal cortical brain activity during fMRI of auditory verbal working memory was the most elaborative on the effect of gender on memory. The researchers were from different universities and health institutions all over America. Goldstein et al (2005) deduced that women were likely to show significantly bigger activations in the hypothesized prefrontal regions as compared to the men. According to this study one valid explanation as to these differences in brain functions is the difference in the regional volumetric sizes of the brain. Females have comparatively bigger bilateral volumes of dorsolateral and a lesser prefrontal cortices contrary to the men.
The above researches have endeavored to prove one undeniable fact that gender differences also cause difference in the memory capabilities. While women might be efficient in object remembrance in terms of identity and location there male counterparts are good in cues involving directional.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the prevalent notion that men are better than women has just been challenged by the above researches. Most of the researches have proved that the women brain is much superior just like the male brain. Conversely women and men should be treated equally in the society especially in the jobs requiring the involvement of their mental capacity. The belief that men are better than women in technical subjects’ is out dated. On the contrary given the same parameters women and men can perform equally excellently.
Reference
Barkley, C. and Gabriel, K. (2007). Sex Differences in Cue Perception in a Visual Scene: Investigation of Cue Type. Behavioral Neuroscience, 121(2): 291–300
Goldstein, J., Poldrack, R., Jerram, M., Anagnodon R. (2005). Sex Differences in Prefrontal Cortical Brain Activity during fMRI of Auditory Verbal Working Memory. Neuropsychology, 19(4): 509–519.
Hassan B. and Rahman Q. (2007). Selective Sexual Orientation–Related Differences in Object Location Memory Behavioral Neuroscience 2007, Vol. 121, No. 3, 625–633
Labouvie-Vief, G., Lumley M., Jain, E. and Heinze, H. (2003). Age and Gender Differences in Cardiac Reactivity and Subjective Emotion Responses to Emotional Autobiographical Memories. Emotion, 3(2): 115–126
Levy, L., Astur, R., & Frick, K. (2005). Men and Women Differ in Object Memory but Not Performance of a Virtual Radial Maze. Behavioral Neuroscience, 119(4): 853–862.