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T h e M e m o r y K e y
<http://www.memory-key.com>

Your resource for information about memory and memory improvement

May 2006

http://www.memory-key.com/newsletters/issue_81.htm

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THIS MONTH ON MEMORY-KEY.COM:


GENDER DIFFERENCES IN COGNITION

WEBSITE CHANGES

PODCAST

AOL USERS

BLOG

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Find out more about my e-book on "Remembering intentions" at:
http://www.memory-key.com/shop/intention_ebook.htm

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Find out about my new YA novel at:
http://www.fmmcpherson.com/

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GENDER DIFFERENCES IN COGNITION

As I discuss below, I have been tidying up my old newsletters and converting many of the articles into “proper” articles on the website. A couple of newsletters did bring up the issue of gender differences, and so I incorporated those mentions into a longer article on gender differences in cognition.

Here’s the main points:

In general, males are better at spatial tasks involving mental rotation.

In general, females have superior verbal skills.

Males are far more likely to pursue math or science careers, but gender differences in math are not consistent across nations or ages.

A number of imaging studies have demonstrated that the brains of males and females show different patterns of activity on various tasks.

Nicotine has been shown to differentially alter men's and women's brain activity patterns so that the differences disappear.

Both estrogen and testosterone have been shown to affect cognitive function.

Training has been shown to bring parity to differences in cognitive performance between the sexes.

Age also alters the differences between men and women.

The full article can be read at
http://www.memory-key.com/NatureofMemory/gender.htm

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WEBSITE CHANGES

A few days ago, I decided to tidy up my newsletter archive. I had been thinking for some time that it was pointless to have all the News Digests archived, since the news reports themselves were available.

That was easily dealt with, but while I was there, I perused the newsletters also. I ended up culling all the older newsletters (those older than a year) of what I regarded as the useful information, and removing the newsletters themselves.

The information I thought was worth keeping has been transformed into many articles, which should make the information much more accessible.

Essentially these articles are the same as appeared in the newsletters, although edited in keeping with their change of context. Most of them also now have summaries, as well as references and links.

Here they all are:

There’s a new section on food and supplements, which includes a page on caffeine and one on gingko biloba.
http://www.memory-key.com/food/food_supplements.htm
http://www.memory-key.com/food/caffeine.htm
http://www.memory-key.com/food/gingko.htm

There are 2 new pages in the mnemonics section: one comparing visual and verbal techniques, and the other on mnemonic songs.
http://www.memory-key.com/mnemonics/visual_vs_verbal.htm
http://www.memory-key.com/mnemonics/songs.htm

The Study Skills section has 2 new pages: one on speed reading, and the other on visual language.
http://www.memory-key.com/StudySkills/speedreading.htm
http://www.memory-key.com/StudySkills/vislang.htm

Parents’ Corner has 2 new articles: one on sleep and cognition in children, and one on classroom learning.
http://www.memory-key.com/Parents/sleep.htm
http://www.memory-key.com/Parents/classroom_learning.htm

The section called “Nature of Memory” has 5 new articles: on gender; working memory and intelligence; photographic memory; right-brain/left-brain; and similarity.
http://www.memory-key.com/NatureofMemory/gender.htm
http://www.memory-key.com/NatureofMemory/wm_iq.htm
http://www.memory-key.com/NatureofMemory/photographic.htm
http://www.memory-key.com/NatureofMemory/rightleft.htm
http://www.memory-key.com/NatureofMemory/similarity.htm

The section on everyday memory has 5 new articles: on multitasking; memory failure; action slips; short-term memory problems; and procedural memory failures.
http://www.memory-key.com/EverydayMemory/multitasking.htm
http://www.memory-key.com/EverydayMemory/blocks.htm
http://www.memory-key.com/EverydayMemory/slips.htm
http://www.memory-key.com/EverydayMemory/stm_problems.htm
http://www.memory-key.com/EverydayMemory/procedural_failures.htm

I haven't quite finished, so one or two others won't be available to next
month. Also, I hope to expand a few of these a little more.

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PODCAST

All of this took quite a long time, so I'm afraid there's no podcast
available this time.

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AOL USERS

My apologies to those of you who receive the news digest and have aol as
your provider. For some reason, all your emails bounced back. You can read
the last Memory News Digest at
http://www.memory-key.com/newsletters/issue_80.htm

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BLOG
www.memory-key.com/blogger.html

Latest posts:

* value of calorie restriction
* education systems responsible for stability of intellectual abilities?
* judging gender by gait
* Music helps those with chronic pain
* a tough childhood makes you more gullible
* verbally abused children grow up self-critical and depressed
* language and planning abilities in non-human animals


* More fuel for the addictive-personality debate
* Individual differences in how we anticipate pain
* being loss-averse is an innate characteristic of humans

Note that the blog is indexed chronologically at
http://www.memory-key.com/indices/blog_index.htm

And by subject, at http://www.memory-key.com/indices/blog_index2.htm

You can also access my blog with an RSS feed. The URL is
http://memory-key.com/ftp.memory-key.com/atom.xml, or just click the
Bloglines button on the sidebar of my blog.

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If you have missed any issue of the newsletter (those people who use hotmail
in particular sometimes have their mail bounced back "overquota"), you can
read back issues at: http://www.memory-key.com/newsletters/newsletters.htm

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The Memory Key website is named after my book "The Memory Key", a
practical user-friendly handbook designed to help people achieve
genuine, long-lasting memory improvement.

http://www.memory-key.com/AboutTheSite/about_book.htm

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1564144704/thememorykey-20

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Copyright © 2006 Capital Research Limited.

All Rights Reserved

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