Women Do THIS Better Than Men

When it comes to remembering the appearance of other people, women excel. That's the word from researchers at The Ohio State University in Columbus, who conducted five separate studies and concluded that women have a better "appearance memory" than men.

The gender difference was not extraordinarily great, but it did show that women are superior to men in interpersonal sensitivity, concluded Terrence Horgan, lead study author and a research fellow in psychology at OSU. "Women have an advantage when it comes to remembering things like the physical features, clothing, and postures of other people," he told Science Daily. "This advantage might be due to women being slightly more people-oriented than men are."

The study also found that both men and women did better at remembering the appearance of women than they did remembering how men looked.

The five studies: In two of the five studies, college students were asked to view videotapes and slides of people talking about themselves or interacting with others. The participants were told in advance that they would be questioned about the people they viewed. They were asked to recall specific details about the people they had seen, including eye color, jewelry, the pattern of a sweater, and if a person had his or her arms crossed. In the other three studies, the participants interacted with each other instead of viewing slides and were not told in advance how they would be tested.

The results: In four of the five studies, women were more accurate than men in describing their partners. (In the fifth study, men and women came out equal in their appearance memory.) In addition, participants of both genders were more accurate in their descriptions when their partners were women than when the partners were men, reports Science Daily. Horgan speculates that women are more memorable because their hair, clothing styles, and jewelry are more varied than that of men.

Why do women have a superior appearance memory? "We really don't know for sure why women have an advantage at remembering how others look," Horgan admitted. "But these results go along with studies that show women are better than men in other areas having to do with interpersonal sensitivity."

What are the real-world implications? "We use appearance cues to categorize individuals, to help us understand them," explained Horgan. "This helps us to interact better with others. Focusing on others' appearance is an important part of our everyday interactions," he said.

The study findings were published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology B