5 ms·

Paper: https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdev.13320 https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdev.1... If I'm reading the res

Paper: https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdev.13320 https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdev.1... If I'm reading the results table in the linked paper correctly, it seems that household wealth was only a significant predictor of working memory in the combined group and the refugee group but not in the non-refugee group, indicating a possible interaction that it is trauma that increases the susceptibility to poverty. Also, one of the strongest predictions of working memory in all groups was gender, which may be an indicator that confounding factors haven't been broken down. For example, with gender, one would ask the question are males really that much better at working memory, or is there a treatment of male children that would result in the noted difference. In the same way, poverty may result in different treatment during a refugee event or similar mass trauma that may have a larger impact on cognitive function. A simple hypothesis would be that wealthier refugees have better access to food which means that there is less cognitive decline associated with poor nutrition during childhood brain development that occurs during a war time event.

downerending 7y ago
Is there other research indicating that males have better working memory than females?
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  I can't speak to specifically working memory, but there is a wide variety of research on sexual dimorphism in humans, including in cognitive function. I know there was some research showing males having better spatial memory than females. But all of this is caught up in a large nature vs nurture (vs both) question. Is it genetics that cause this? Is it the environment (social pressure/influence) that causes this? Is it a combination of genetics and environment that causes this? The same sort of complexity would exist in any real life test like this, because this isn't a laboratory where you can make sure everything but a single independent variable is the same, modify that independent variable, and then measure the influence on the dependent variable.
  - pdpi 7y ago
    Crucially, there’s a difference between “males have statistically significantly better memory”, which is what you are talking about, and “gender is one of the top predictors of memory”, which is, reportedly, what the data in the article shows.
    - xyzzyz 7y ago
      Can you explain to me what the difference is?
      - downerending 7y ago
        Not OP, but statistical significance has to do with how _sure_ you are that there is an effect. It doesn't really say anything about how _large_ the effect is. It's pretty obvious that gender can't be a top predictor of memory, intelligence, etc. The reason is that even if there is a definite difference where males are better than females, it'd be a modest delta between two bell curves. That would leave huge numbers of pairings in which a female had better memory than a male, etc.
        thaumasiotes 7y ago
        Stipulating most of your comment, gender can still easily be a top predictor of memory / intelligence / etc., because "top" is an ordinal concept. That just says it has more of an effect than other predictors. But see also https://sci-hub.tw/https://amstat.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2330443X.2015.1129918#.Xdndn5NKiL5 https://sci-hub.tw/https://amstat.tandfonline.com/doi/full/1... , finding that the top predictor (among those investigated) of a police officer shooting a civilian is "the officer is black", narrowly beating out "the officer is rapidly accumulating negative marks in his file". Are there a large number of pairings in which a white officer shoots someone and a black officer doesn't? Sure, but the effect of race is still enormous in this case. ("Black officers were 3.3 times more likely to shoot than other officers.") I would expect the effect of sex to dwarf the effect of race, but the study is limited to police officers that exist, of which more than 92% in the sample are male. So probably there's some restriction of range.
xyzzyz 7y ago
Also, one of the strongest predictions of working memory in all groups was gender, which may be an indicator that confounding factors haven't been broken down. Only if you erroneously assume that the sex cannot be predictive of differences in working memory. We know it's not the case: there are sex differences in average scores in subtests (or in group factors). However, most results point in the direction of female advantage in short term memory. Jensen's 1998 book for example quotes Cohen's d between -0.2 and -0.3, favoring females.
- jacobolus 7y ago
  > Only if you erroneously assume ... The previous commenter made some qualified questioning speculation. Leaping to conclusions about what his or her unstated assumptions must have been and then calling them “erroneous” seems a bit hostile. * * * How does one tease out the difference between inherent biological differences vs. differences caused by a lifetime spent in the differing social/cultural environment facing boys vs. girls? How robust are working memory differences between sexes across time, across different countries, across different subcultural groups, etc.?
  - lmm 7y ago
    > Leaping to conclusions about what his or her unstated assumptions must have been and then calling them “erroneous” seems a bit hostile. The original comment was leaping to the assumption that finding sex differences means there must be something wrong with the study/analysis. That's dangerously wrong.
    - pdpi 7y ago
      > Also, one of the strongest predictions of working memory in all groups was gender, which may be an indicator that confounding factors haven't been broken down. “May be an indicator”. Not quite the Olympic jumping-at-conclusions performance I’d expect from a “dangerously wrong” comment.
  - xyzzyz 7y ago
    Leaping to conclusions about what his or her unstated assumptions must have been If you don’t assume that the subtest scores are the same across sexes, the “qualified questioning speculation” that there is something wrong with control variables makes no sense. How does one tease out the difference between inherent biological differences vs. differences caused by a lifetime spent in the differing social/cultural environment facing boys vs. girls? This kind of unentanglement is usually done through twin studies: you compare how well correlated are monozygotic vs dizygotic twins. Since it’s reasonable to assume that both monozygotic and dizygotic twins share the same or at least very similar environments, if the correlation between monozygotic twins on a given trait is greater than in dizygotic twins, it means that genetic causation plays a role, while if the correlation is the same, there it is likely no genetic causation. Of course, it’s a bit hard to find monozygotic twins of different sexes, but similar ideas are used in that case. The point is, we do have the tools to unentangle nature from nurture, and in general, all points in the direction of genetic causation when it comes to cognitive traits. I recommend reading the Jensen’s 1998 book I mentioned.
364738299 7y ago
Is the correct word in this context actually gender or would it be sex? Given the context, the difference seems like it would be relevant.

downerending 7y ago

Is there other research indicating that males have better working memory than females?

SkyBelow 7y ago
I can't speak to specifically working memory, but there is a wide variety of research on sexual dimorphism in humans, including in cognitive function. I know there was some research showing males having better spatial memory than females. But all of this is caught up in a large nature vs nurture (vs both) question. Is it genetics that cause this? Is it the environment (social pressure/influence) that causes this? Is it a combination of genetics and environment that causes this? The same sort of complexity would exist in any real life test like this, because this isn't a laboratory where you can make sure everything but a single independent variable is the same, modify that independent variable, and then measure the influence on the dependent variable.
- pdpi 7y ago
  Crucially, there’s a difference between “males have statistically significantly better memory”, which is what you are talking about, and “gender is one of the top predictors of memory”, which is, reportedly, what the data in the article shows.
  - xyzzyz 7y ago
    Can you explain to me what the difference is?
    - downerending 7y ago
      Not OP, but statistical significance has to do with how _sure_ you are that there is an effect. It doesn't really say anything about how _large_ the effect is. It's pretty obvious that gender can't be a top predictor of memory, intelligence, etc. The reason is that even if there is a definite difference where males are better than females, it'd be a modest delta between two bell curves. That would leave huge numbers of pairings in which a female had better memory than a male, etc.
      - thaumasiotes 7y ago
        Stipulating most of your comment, gender can still easily be a top predictor of memory / intelligence / etc., because "top" is an ordinal concept. That just says it has more of an effect than other predictors. But see also https://sci-hub.tw/https://amstat.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2330443X.2015.1129918#.Xdndn5NKiL5 https://sci-hub.tw/https://amstat.tandfonline.com/doi/full/1... , finding that the top predictor (among those investigated) of a police officer shooting a civilian is "the officer is black", narrowly beating out "the officer is rapidly accumulating negative marks in his file". Are there a large number of pairings in which a white officer shoots someone and a black officer doesn't? Sure, but the effect of race is still enormous in this case. ("Black officers were 3.3 times more likely to shoot than other officers.") I would expect the effect of sex to dwarf the effect of race, but the study is limited to police officers that exist, of which more than 92% in the sample are male. So probably there's some restriction of range.

xyzzyz 7y ago

Also, one of the strongest predictions of working memory in all groups was gender, which may be an indicator that confounding factors haven't been broken down. Only if you erroneously assume that the sex cannot be predictive of differences in working memory. We know it's not the case: there are sex differences in average scores in subtests (or in group factors). However, most results point in the direction of female advantage in short term memory. Jensen's 1998 book for example quotes Cohen's d between -0.2 and -0.3, favoring females.

jacobolus 7y ago
> Only if you erroneously assume ... The previous commenter made some qualified questioning speculation. Leaping to conclusions about what his or her unstated assumptions must have been and then calling them “erroneous” seems a bit hostile. * * * How does one tease out the difference between inherent biological differences vs. differences caused by a lifetime spent in the differing social/cultural environment facing boys vs. girls? How robust are working memory differences between sexes across time, across different countries, across different subcultural groups, etc.?
- lmm 7y ago
  > Leaping to conclusions about what his or her unstated assumptions must have been and then calling them “erroneous” seems a bit hostile. The original comment was leaping to the assumption that finding sex differences means there must be something wrong with the study/analysis. That's dangerously wrong.
  - pdpi 7y ago
    > Also, one of the strongest predictions of working memory in all groups was gender, which may be an indicator that confounding factors haven't been broken down. “May be an indicator”. Not quite the Olympic jumping-at-conclusions performance I’d expect from a “dangerously wrong” comment.
- xyzzyz 7y ago
  Leaping to conclusions about what his or her unstated assumptions must have been If you don’t assume that the subtest scores are the same across sexes, the “qualified questioning speculation” that there is something wrong with control variables makes no sense. How does one tease out the difference between inherent biological differences vs. differences caused by a lifetime spent in the differing social/cultural environment facing boys vs. girls? This kind of unentanglement is usually done through twin studies: you compare how well correlated are monozygotic vs dizygotic twins. Since it’s reasonable to assume that both monozygotic and dizygotic twins share the same or at least very similar environments, if the correlation between monozygotic twins on a given trait is greater than in dizygotic twins, it means that genetic causation plays a role, while if the correlation is the same, there it is likely no genetic causation. Of course, it’s a bit hard to find monozygotic twins of different sexes, but similar ideas are used in that case. The point is, we do have the tools to unentangle nature from nurture, and in general, all points in the direction of genetic causation when it comes to cognitive traits. I recommend reading the Jensen’s 1998 book I mentioned.

364738299 7y ago

Is the correct word in this context actually gender or would it be sex? Given the context, the difference seems like it would be relevant.