Gender Differences in Episodic Encoding of Autobiographical Memory

Gender differences in autobiographical memory have been widely reported; in this study, those differences were considered with regard to episodic and semantic memory, and encoding and retrieval. Participants reported memory narratives of two events that had occurred within a day of the report. They were re-tested on them 10-13 weeks later. Narratives were content coded for internal and external details, a method meant to reflect episodic and semantic memory, respectively. Results indicate gender differences in internal details at Time 1 that remained stable at Time 2, suggesting that encoding is the more promising approach to understanding gender differences in this domain and showing consistency with previous research and theory. Gender differences in external details were minimal, but implicated encoding when present. General Audience Summary Gender differences in autobiographical memory have been widely reported, often in the guise of women recalling more detail than men. According to some theories, these differences may reflect a difference in the general style of taking in information, rather than how much people forget over time. Thus, in this study, I tested whether women retain more information than men over time, or if they simply store more information to begin with. Participants in this study reported two events that had occurred within a day of their participation in the study. After 2-3 months, they were given a surprise recall test for these same events. Women reported more details relating to what happened in each event (e.g., actions, sights, sounds, thoughts) at the first time point, and the amount of detail decreased at similar rates for both women and men. Taken together, these results suggest that women store more of this type of information than men and that how information is first taken in may be more central to understanding gender differences in memory, compared to processes involved in forgetting.