5 ms·

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 t

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.
      - downerending 7y ago
        Sure. I had in mind something like "average parent IQ" as a top predictor. Next to that, probably almost everything else pales.

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.
    - downerending 7y ago
      Sure. I had in mind something like "average parent IQ" as a top predictor. Next to that, probably almost everything else pales.