Do women 'have better memories than men'
July 14th 2010 14:48
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Women have better memories than men, scientists have claimed.
Researchers have discovered evidence that the female brain is more capable of remembering information than the male's.
Scientists at Cambridge University have demonstrated a clear link between factors such as sex and education level and memory function
The findings may help scientists to further understand the causes of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other dementias and potentially to detect the earliest signs of dementia more accurately.
The study carried out a number of memory tests on almost 4,500 men and women from East Anglia.
The cognitive and physical performance of each participant, currently aged between 48 and 90 years, was assessed.
The preliminary results give a strong indication that women's memories function better than men, with women making an average of 5.9 fewer errors on a specific test of memory than men.
This clear difference remains unchanged regardless of age.
Dr Andrew Blackwell, Chief Scientific Officer at Cambridge Cognition and Honorary Visiting Research Associate at the University of Cambridge Department of Psychiatry says:
"Although the links between sex and education and cognitive function have been explored before, this very large data set provides striking evidence that these factors play a major role in determining how good our memory function is as we age.
"Using these data, we can determine whether or not an individual's memory function is normal or not for people of their age, sex and education level.
"A body of scientific literature has demonstrated that women typically outperform men on test of verbal function, whereas men tend to outperform women on tasks of spatial function.
"However, in this study, we used a measure of memory that is spatial and women consistently outperformed men. There are many possible explanations for this, including both neurobiological and environmental differences."
The final study will have analysed 10,000 participants.
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Comment by ShaunK
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Comment by katyzzz
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Since more women have taken up somoking and men are doing it less the longevity of the sexes is becoming more equal.
The problem with any sort of statistics is that they don't relate well to individuals but to a population group as a whole.
Certainly I think it is good to have a good memory and I'm the proud possessor of one, but everyone forgets things from time to time, and forgetting is as imperative as remembering as has been shown with those individuals who, because of certain medical circumstances, can't forget. Their minds are quite cluttered and dysfunctional.
Nice to see you Shaun, the trouble with all research is that the focus is on the findings not on the philosophies that abound around it.
Researchers would understand this, others do not comprehend that fact so well.
Comment by ShaunK
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interesting, thanks Katyzz