Tuesday, June 26, 2007
My feeble memory is not my fault
Discover Magazine is running a special newstand issue devoted to "The Brain," and it includes an article on gender differences. Women, it seems, have much better memories than men, at least when it comes to details of emotional experiences. It turns out that a man's inability to remember the various indignities he may have visited upon his better half is not the result of not giving a damn.
Researchers found that the amygdala, which also processes emotional memories, acts differently in men and women. In one study, volunteers were shown a series of graphically violent films while their brain activity was measured using a PET scan.
To process the most disturbing material, men fired up the amygdala's right hemisphere, which is more in tune with the outside world and communicates with regions that control sight, such as the visual cortex, and motor coordination, like the striatum. Women, on the other hand, activated the left hemisphere, which concentrates more on the body's inner environment and is connected to the insular cortex, where sensory information is translated into emotional experiences, and to the hypothalamus, the master regulator of such basic functions as metabolism.
"When men are presented with an emotionally provocative stimulus, part of the motor system is activated, which may be why men try to resolve the situation by acting on the environment," says Witelson. "But in women, the hypothalamus is activated, which controls digestion, so it may not be surprising that when a woman is really upset, she feels weak and nauseated and can't sleep."
We also know that the brain's right hemisphere distills the essence of a situation, the central idea, while the left side mulls the finer points and tracks the details. Consequently, this right-left amygdala division may also illuminate why women remember every excruciating detail of a blowup they had on their honeymoon -- where they were, what they were wearing, the time of day -- while their husbands barely recall the tiff.
Needless to say, bold emphasis added.
I further note for the record that the author of the story, including presumably the phrase "every excrutiating detail," is one Linda Marsa. Just sayin'.
9 Comments:
By 
Papa Ray, at
Wed Jun 27, 12:05:00 AM:
There is something that the author left out, most likely on purpose.
In that the woman remembers well, and the man doesn't, the woman is free to remember the incident or event in any manner she wishes.
Facts be dammed.
In my long life, almost all of it in the midst of women, I can tell you that if something drastic or important happens and you are involved, you best hope you have witnesses, recordings and written records because even with those items, you will be hard pressed to maintain, prove or recount "the truth" of the matter later on.
I know, from painful experiences.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
By 
, at
Wed Jun 27, 12:59:00 AM:
Yet DISCOVER still pushes this rediclous idea of GLOBAL WARMING and sell those rediclous EVOLVE FISH will those stupid little legs on them
By , at
Wed Jun 27, 04:28:00 AM:
But I bet she can't even tell you what the engine specification of the wedding car was.
By , at
Wed Jun 27, 02:10:00 PM:
Recall the C&W song ”I’m a memory.”
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Wed Jun 27, 05:33:00 PM:
Discover is the People magazine of the science world, so be careful with it. It always promises more than it delivers in terms of grounding its facts.
While it is true that most women remember emotional details better than men, there is so much variation that it is a bit dangerous to generalise. Three of my four sons and I all have better emotional memory than my wife, for example.
Papa Ray is right, though it's not just a woman thing. The person who remembers an incident's details best falsely concludes that his interpretation must be likewise more correct. There is actually not much corelation. For example, the person in a group who correctly remembers the date on which an event occurs is only slightly more likely to accurately summarise the global occurence.
By , at
Thu Jun 28, 12:52:00 AM:
Quite afew of out politicians suffer from ADDS they forget all their promises and forget the swore on a bible to UP HOLD PROTECT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES FROM ENEMIES FORGEIN AND DOMESTIC
By , at
Thu Jun 28, 04:41:00 AM:
Eyewitness testimony is unreliable in many circumstances, particularly when time has passed or the person remembering is emotionally invested in the event; we base our criminal justice system on it because we really don't have anything better, but if you read about just how badly people do in controlled tests (see eg the wiki article and references therein) it's pretty scary.
So when my girlfriend tells me that she can allegedly remember perfectly an event that was a) emotionally charged for her, and b) happened months ago, well, usually I don't object, because it's generally not worth fighting about. But I know it's BS!
By Georg Felis, at
Thu Jun 28, 01:01:00 PM:
I wonder what scientific studies have been done comparing the accuracy of memory vs the perceived accuracy of memory, i.e. not just which remember better, men or women, but which group *thinks* they remember things better. As a man, I’ll put my money on “Women think they remember things better, but it is a tie.” Mind you, I’m not telling my wife. In any discussion of memory, she’s right and I’m wrong, and I’m smart enough to realize that (which is one reason we’ve been married for 20+ years).
By , at
Mon Jul 02, 07:24:00 PM:
From experience I know at least two motor functions are available to a woman "presented with an emotionally provocative stimulus": (1) letting go of the car's steering wheel and (2) hitting her man. Women seem to have a poor memory for remembering those things, however.
And to doctorpat's mention of the inability of women, generally, to recall little details like "the engine specification of the wedding car" add other details like the price of the honeymoon hotel room and how many hours of overtime work went into paying for it.
The underlying message in that Discover magazine article is that whatever women remember is considered important and whatever men remember is not worth studying at all.
