Are All memories Alike?

We sometimes wonder if all memories are alike and if so why are some people just better at remembering EVERYTHING. The question has been answered all memories are different and are triggered by the individuals characteristics, it's sex gender and its cultural background.

Psychologists Agneta Herlitz and Jenny Rehnman in Stockholm also wondered if one's sex affected it's ability to remember things. Trough certain tests they discovered that significant sex differences in episodic memory which is a type of long term memory that focuses on personal experiences. The findings discovered this memory favors women. Certain results demonstrated woman were significantly better in verbal episodic memory and in verbal episodic memory tasks such as remembering words or pictures. While men outperformed women in remembering symbolic and non linguistic information. Another test performed by the psychologists which involved presenting three group of participants faces found that women were able to remember the female faces more accurately. this concludes women are better than men at remembering faces especially female faces. Several other studies also demonstrated women are better at tasks requiring no verbal processing. The results suggest that the female gender hold an advantage in episodic memory demonstrating all memories are NOT alike.

Studies have found that not only does sex influence our ability to remember things but our cultural background does as well. Don't we all recall our childhood memories differently well researchers have found that the average age of difference in memory varies widely from person to person and that the average age of first memories varies up two to years between cultures. Michelle Leichtman, PhD, a psychologist at the University of New Hampshire who studied childhood memory states that the function of the meaning of memory or it's importance varies between a particular cultural system. The way parents and other adults talk or don't talk or recall memories influences the way children will later remember those events. People who grow up in a society that stresses personal history or focuses on family history will often have earlier childhood memories that people who grow up in cultures that value interdependence or talk little about shared memories and events. In 1994, psychologist Mary Mullen, PhD published the first research comparing the ages of first memories across cultures. in the study she asked more than 700 Caucasian and Asian or Asian-American undergraduates to describe their earliest memories. Mullen--a Harvard University graduate student at the time--found that on average the Asian and Asian-American students' memories happened six months later than the Caucasian students' memories. This doesn't mean Caucasian's have better memory it just means people have the type of memory that allows them get along better in their cultural environment.

Trough several studies performed in the last decade psychologists can prove that memories do vary depending on a persons sex and its cultural and environmental traditions and needs. This proves no memories are alike and we all view and recall our childhood and past memories differently.

Sources

http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep05/culture.aspx

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080220104244.htm