Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, 3498848, Haifa, Israel.
Institute of Information Processing and Decision Making, University of Haifa, 3498848, Haifa, Israel.
Mem Cognit. 2019 Feb;47(2):257-265. doi: 10.3758/s13421-018-0863-z.
In two experiments, we examined the role of differential levels of knowledge between the genders in different domains, which we term gender expertise, in accounting for differences in episodic memory performance. In Experiment 1, we validated the assumption of differential gender expertise among men and women and selected the categories for the subsequent experiments. In Experiment 2, participants from both genders studied exemplars from these female-oriented, male-oriented, and gender-neutral categories and were tested after 24 hours on studied items, critical lures, and unrelated lures. A gender-congruity effect was found in terms of the recognition rates of both studied items and critical lures: Participants from each gender recognized more studied items and more critical lures from gender-congruent categories than from gender-incongruent categories. A parallel pattern of results was found for subjective confidence, supporting the notion that gender congruity enhanced the phenomenological experience that an item was studied. Our findings highlight the unique role of gender expertise in accounting for gender-congruity effects in episodic memory performance, using a well-defined operationalization of gender expertise. These findings show that in addition to benefits in terms of enhancing true memory, gender expertise also has a "dark side" of increasing false memories.
在两项实验中，我们考察了不同领域中性别间知识水平差异（我们称之为性别专长）在解释情节记忆表现差异中的作用。在实验 1 中，我们验证了男性和女性之间存在性别专长差异的假设，并选择了后续实验的类别。在实验 2 中，来自两性的参与者学习了这些女性导向、男性导向和性别中立类别的范例，24 小时后对学习项目、关键诱饵和不相关诱饵进行测试。在学习项目和关键诱饵的识别率方面都发现了性别一致性效应：来自每个性别的参与者从性别一致的类别中识别出更多的学习项目和更多的关键诱饵，而不是从性别不一致的类别中识别出更多的学习项目和更多的关键诱饵。主观置信度也呈现出类似的模式，支持了这样一种观点，即性别一致性增强了被试对项目被学习的现象体验。我们的研究结果强调了性别专长在解释情节记忆表现中的性别一致性效应中的独特作用，使用了性别专长的明确定义操作化。这些发现表明，除了增强真实记忆的益处外，性别专长也有增加错误记忆的“阴暗面”。
