CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS RETRIEVAL IN PICTURE-RECOGNITION - A FRAMEWORK FOR EXPLORING GENDER DIFFERENCES

The authors explored gender differences by examining 2 distinct memory processes involved in recognizing pictures that were scenes captured from videotapes. For Study 1, the authors used a process dissociation procedure (L. J. Anooshian & P. S. Seibert, 1995; L. L. Jacoby, 1991) to obtain separate estimates of the contributions of recollection (con scious retrieval) and sense of familiarity (unconscious retrieval) in recognizing scenes along previously viewed routes of travel. Women obt ained higher familiarity scores than did men, whereas no gender differ ence emerged for conscious recollection. In Study 2, the authors teste d both preschool children and adults and found results similar to thos e in Study 1 for a task with pictures captured from children's cartoon s, regardless of age. The results from these studies illustrate the ne ed for greater attention to diverse memory processes when investigatin g individual differences, including gender differences, in diverse tas k domains.