Do You Remember?

Overview

Objectives/Goals What is the impact of gender familiar items to ones short-term memory? Is there any impact at all? My hypthosesis was that the sex of the person would determine which items they were more drawn to. Methods/Materials I used 15 males, and 15 females, and sat them down individualy. Each person had 30 seconds to stare at the tray full of items(10 male items-hammer, baseball, tape measure, razor, screwdriver, nail, deodorant, baseball hat, golfball, and a watch & 10 female items-nail polish, brush, mascara, hair clips, lipstick, bracelet, tweezers, earrings, magazine, and a purse). After each subject starred at the tray for 30 seconds, the tray was removed and the tester waited another 30 seconds before proceeding. Then the subjects had 30seconds to write down all the items they remebered. (The subjects were not advised beforehand that they would have to write down the items they remebered.) Results were then summarized and observed. Results After I studied the data, I realized my hypothesis was not correct after all. Only 5 out of 15 men got more of the male items than the female items. The popular male items that were remembered were the hat, hammer, golfball, and baseball. The female items that the men mostly remembered were the magazine, the purse, and the nail polish. As for the females, 7 out of 15 remembered more male items than female items. The most popular male item that they could recall were the hat, the hammer, and the nail and the most female items they got were the earrings, magazine, and purse. The only item out of 20 that supported my hypothesis was the earrings. With this item, the females clearly dominated with a 14 out of 15 recalling and only 5 out of 15 for the men. Conclusions/Discussion I learned that my hypothesis was not correct, and that it didn't matter what the persons's gender was. After looking at the data, I expanded my thoughts. I considered that maybe the size of the item might have something to do with the subejcts' memory recall, since the magazine, hammer, and hat (the largest items on the tray) were very popularly remebered. After further reveiw, I realized that size did not matter, since half the subjects also recalled the earrings and tweezers a lot too. With the exception of the earrings, no other items dominated by one particular sex.

Competition history

• CSEF 2006 Social Sciences (Junior Division Only) · Entry J1704

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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