Working memory capacity and gender

TL;DR

This study investigates gender differences in working memory capacity among Russian college students, revealing small overall differences but significant variations across academic fields and a u-shaped gender ratio pattern.

Contribution

It provides new insights into how gender and academic field influence working memory capacity and gender ratios within fields, using the Tarnow Unchunkable Test.

Findings

Small gender differences in WMC overall

Gender ratios in fields are strongly amplified from WMC ratios

U-shaped pattern of gender ratio differences in WMC

Abstract

The working memory capacity (WMC) of 400 Russian college students was measured using the Tarnow Unchunkable Test [2] which tests WMC alone without requiring explicit working memory operations. We found small-sized WMC differences by gender and the possibility that the male/female ratio increases for low and high WMC creating a u-shaped curve. The gender proportion in each academic fields was a strong determinant of the average WMC (r2=0.2 for the 3-item test and r2=0.5 for the 4-item test), associating "academic female" (law, history) with holistic thinking and "academic male" with reductive thinking (physics, computer science, math). Within academic fields there were no WMC gender differences. The male/female ratios for the different fields are strongly amplified from the WMC male/female ratios, by factors of 12-14.