Gender differences in unconscious visual working memory

Abstract: Recent research has shown that working memory tasks can be performed with information that hasn’t been consciously perceived. This provides new opportunities in research concerning possible limitations and influential factors on unconscious working memory. Gender has been demonstrated to be a factor affecting conscious visual working memory tasks and could likewise influence unconscious visual working memory. An analysis of behavioral data, obtained in three similar unconscious visual working memory tasks (n = 89), was performed. Three ANCOVAs were conducted to establish whether there was a significant effect of gender on unconscious working memory accuracy, response time (RT) and speed-accuracy tradeoff (SAT) across the three datasets. The analysis demonstrated a significant advantage in response time for female participants compared to male participants. Implications of this observation, such as male and female response strategies and possible social implications of unconscious processes, are discussed in this thesis.