Neuroscience
Prospective memory is the term psychologists use for when we have to remember to do something in the future – like stopping for milk on the way home from work. It requires not just remembering what to do, but remembering to remember at the right time.
There's actually some past research that suggested women, on average, are more prone to forgetting future tasks than men. But crucially, this research was subjective. Women admitted more memory failures of this kind than men did, but of course that doesn't mean they really do forget more often.
Now a team led by Liana Palermo has conducted a carefully controlled objective test of prospective memory under laboratory conditions. Fifty men and fifty women (average age 25) were given various tasks to remember to complete, mostly over either two-minute or fifteen-minute time scales, although there was one task after 24 hours.
Averaged across all tasks and conditions, there were no gender differences in performance. But focusing on specific types of tasks, differences emerged. Women were better than men at remembering to perform future tasks that were tied to events rather than a specific delay (e.g. perform task x when I give you a card, as opposed to perform task x in two minutes). The women also tended to outperform men on future tasks that were physical in nature (e.g. writing their address on a post card), as opposed to verbal (e.g. remembering to ask a specific question).
It's possible the female advantage for some aspects of prospective memory is merely a side-effect of women's other cognitive advantages. For example, women tend to have superior verbal skills than men, and the instructions in this study were delivered verbally. However, the researchers don't think this is likely because in that case you'd expect women to outperform men on all forms of prospective memory, and especially on future verbal tasks.
This was a small sample and, being lab-based, the study lacked realism, so more research is certainly needed. But the finding does tie in with other research conducted on the internet that also found a female advantage for prospective memory, and with existing evidence that women have an advantage for episodic memory (that is, remembering things that have happened to them in the past). Regarding the prior research that found women admit to more prospective memory failures, this new study raises the possibility that women are simply better at detecting their own forgetfulness.
Assuming this female advantage is replicated in further studies, why should women be better than men at remembering to remember? Here Palermo and her team are left to speculate: they suggest there could be a biological explanation, such as the known sex-linked differences in the hippocampus (a brain area involved in memory). They also propose a possible socio-cultural explanation, which may well resonate with some of our readers:
Palermo, L., Cinelli, M., Piccardi, L., Ciurli, P., Incoccia, C., Zompanti, L., & Guariglia, C. (2015). Women outperform men in remembering to remember The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1-10 DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2015.1023734
--further reading--
Women really are better than men at processing faces
Women have a superior memory for faces
Women's true maths skills unlocked by pretending to be someone else
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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- Neuropsychology Abstract Of The Day: Prospective Memory
Remember to Buy Milk on the Way Home! A Meta-analytic Review of Prospective Memory in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society. 2012 May 18;:1-11 Authors: van den Berg E, Kant N, Postma A Abstract...
- Neuropsychology Abstract Of The Day: Prospective Memory
Fish J, Wilson BA, & Manly T. The assessment and rehabilitation of prospective memory problems in people with neurological disorders: A review. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 2010 Feb, 4: 1-19. [Epub ahead of print] MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences...
Neuroscience
Women are better than men at remembering to remember
There's actually some past research that suggested women, on average, are more prone to forgetting future tasks than men. But crucially, this research was subjective. Women admitted more memory failures of this kind than men did, but of course that doesn't mean they really do forget more often.
Now a team led by Liana Palermo has conducted a carefully controlled objective test of prospective memory under laboratory conditions. Fifty men and fifty women (average age 25) were given various tasks to remember to complete, mostly over either two-minute or fifteen-minute time scales, although there was one task after 24 hours.
Averaged across all tasks and conditions, there were no gender differences in performance. But focusing on specific types of tasks, differences emerged. Women were better than men at remembering to perform future tasks that were tied to events rather than a specific delay (e.g. perform task x when I give you a card, as opposed to perform task x in two minutes). The women also tended to outperform men on future tasks that were physical in nature (e.g. writing their address on a post card), as opposed to verbal (e.g. remembering to ask a specific question).
It's possible the female advantage for some aspects of prospective memory is merely a side-effect of women's other cognitive advantages. For example, women tend to have superior verbal skills than men, and the instructions in this study were delivered verbally. However, the researchers don't think this is likely because in that case you'd expect women to outperform men on all forms of prospective memory, and especially on future verbal tasks.
This was a small sample and, being lab-based, the study lacked realism, so more research is certainly needed. But the finding does tie in with other research conducted on the internet that also found a female advantage for prospective memory, and with existing evidence that women have an advantage for episodic memory (that is, remembering things that have happened to them in the past). Regarding the prior research that found women admit to more prospective memory failures, this new study raises the possibility that women are simply better at detecting their own forgetfulness.
Assuming this female advantage is replicated in further studies, why should women be better than men at remembering to remember? Here Palermo and her team are left to speculate: they suggest there could be a biological explanation, such as the known sex-linked differences in the hippocampus (a brain area involved in memory). They also propose a possible socio-cultural explanation, which may well resonate with some of our readers:
"...[T]he fact that in addition to work responsibilities, women also have more responsibilities at home. ... As a consequence of this social role, in daily life women might perform tasks involving prospective memory/planning skills more than men, thus enhancing their performance in remembering to remember."_________________________________
Palermo, L., Cinelli, M., Piccardi, L., Ciurli, P., Incoccia, C., Zompanti, L., & Guariglia, C. (2015). Women outperform men in remembering to remember The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1-10 DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2015.1023734
--further reading--
Women really are better than men at processing faces
Women have a superior memory for faces
Women's true maths skills unlocked by pretending to be someone else
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- Pregnancy Affects Women's Memory For What They Plan To Do
Anecdotal reports of women experiencing memory problems during pregnancy have recently been supported by lab research showing that pregnant women under-perform on tests of retrospective memory, such as word learning tasks. What's not been established...
- Women's Memories Are More Speech-filled Than Men's
To gasps of surprise from some quarters, a spate of recent studies have shown that women don't talk any more than men do. But now Richard Ely and Elizabeth Ryan have looked at people's autobiographical memories and found that while women may not...
- Inside The Brains Of Men And Women Controlling Their Emotions
Women do seem to cry more readily than men, but is that because they are less able to control their emotions? According to Ute Habel and colleagues, research does suggest women are more 'emotional'. They cite the fact that women are more vulnerable...
- Neuropsychology Abstract Of The Day: Prospective Memory
Remember to Buy Milk on the Way Home! A Meta-analytic Review of Prospective Memory in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society. 2012 May 18;:1-11 Authors: van den Berg E, Kant N, Postma A Abstract...
- Neuropsychology Abstract Of The Day: Prospective Memory
Fish J, Wilson BA, & Manly T. The assessment and rehabilitation of prospective memory problems in people with neurological disorders: A review. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 2010 Feb, 4: 1-19. [Epub ahead of print] MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences...