Episodic and Semantic Memory

Although women often report autobiographical memories with more detail than men, this gender effect is inconsistent and dependent on study methodology (see Grysman & Hudson, 2013).
Grysman and colleagues argue that a better understanding of this effect and its implications for memory processes requires more fine-grained analyses of different sources of data and of potential moderators and mediators. Strategies include comparing self-report data to narrative data (Grysman, Merrill, & Fivush, under review), examining the role of gender typical identity (e.g., Grysman & Fivush, under review), and testing the role of data collection context (Grysman & Denney, in press). Consistency in narrative content data suggests this method is ideal for obtaining data relevant to understanding gender in autobiographical memory.
Fuentes and Desrocher (2011) found that women provided more episodic, but not more semantic, details than men; however, this effect was limited to high retrieval support. Wang (2013) collected details of events within 30 minutes of occurrence from participants, who were then asked to recall these events one week later. She found that women provided more details than men at both encoding and retrieval, and that a similar forgetting function was observed across these groups. Together, these studies suggest that women engage in more episodic encoding than men.
The current study recruited college students who reported three events: two occurring in the previous day and one in the previous week. They were asked again to recall these three events 2-3 months later in a surprise recall task. After reporting each event at each time point, participants completed a shortened Memory Experiences Questionnaire (Sutin & Robins, 2007). Researchers coded memory narratives at both time points for episodic and semantic content using Levine et al.’s (2002) coding system, i.e., the same methodology employed by Fuentes and Desrocher (2011).
Results demonstrated consistent effects of gender on episodic details. For all three repeated events, women reported more episodic details than men. Two of three events demonstrated an interaction such that women’s greater use of episodic details over men was stronger in the initial event report than in the recall months later. These interactions further substantiate the claim that gender differences are linked to encoding more so than to retrieval. Findings regarding semantic details were mixed. Although low absolute scores led to nonsignificant findings in each event, gender effects did emerge when combining across these three events. Taken together, results demonstrate clear support for women recalling more episodic details than men, and suggest that encoding is more relevant than retrieval; however, findings also suggest that women’s higher recall may extend to semantic details, warranting further research. Differences between this study and that of Fuentes and Desrocher (2011), such as the presence of an effect without retrieval support, may be linked to the more recent time frame used.

Repetitions that are distributed (spaced) across time prompt enhancement of a memory-related event-related potential, compared to when repetitions are massed (contiguous). Here, we used fMRI to investigate neural enhancement and suppression effects during free viewing of natural scenes that were either novel or repeated four times with massed or distributed repetitions. Distributed repetition was uniquely associated with a repetition enhancement effect in a bilateral posterior parietal cluster that included the precuneus and posterior cingulate and which has previously been implicated in episodic memory retrieval. Unique to massed repetition, conversely, was enhancement in a right dorsolateral prefrontal cluster that has been implicated in short-term maintenance. Repetition suppression effects for both types of spacing were widespread in regions activated during novel picture processing. Taken together, the data are consistent with a hypothesis that distributed repetition prompts spontaneous retrieval of prior occurrences, whereas massed repetition prompts short-term maintenance of the episodic representation, due to contiguous presentation. These processing differences may mediate the classic spacing effect in learning and memory.