Sex differences in recollective experience for olfactory and verbal information.
We examined recollective experience as a function of sex for olfactory and verbal information. In the first study, men and women studied a set of highly familiar odors with incidental or intentional encoding instructions. In the second study, participants were presented with a number of sentences. At recognition, participants indicated whether their positive response was based on conscious recollection (remembering), a feeling of familiarity (knowing), or guessing. The results indicated that recollection was higher among women than men, and that familiarity-based recognition was equally large across sex for both types of information.The finding that the sex-related experiential difference disappeared when controlling for verbal proficiency suggests that sex-related differences in activating verbal information play an important role for sex differences in recollective experience.
Larsson
Maria
M
Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
Lövdén
Martin
M
Nilsson
Lars-Göran
LG
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012737:Sex Factors; D012903:Smell / Q000502:physiology*; D014825:Vocabulary