Men are always criticized by women for their carelessness, and their tendency to forget things like birthdays and wedding anniversaries, or simply forgetting to take out the garbage. Recent research published in the journal BMC Psychology offers some defense to men, saying that men - regardless of age - tend to forget more than women.

Together with his team, Jostein Holmen, a professor with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, analyzed the information provided by 37,405 participants. Men of every age reported poorer memories than women. Holmen's team also found no evidence that memory problems accelerate much over time among both men and women. Young men are as forgetful as the old.

"It was surprising to see that men forget more than women. This has not been documented before," said Holmen. "It was also surprising to see that men are just as forgetful whether they are 30 or 60 years old. The results were unambiguous."

Last year, research indicated that men and women differ in the structure of the brain, which may explain why men are good at some things that women are not. The researchers tried to speculate on the factors which lead to the gender differences in memory, but they have not come up with any definitive explanation.

"We have thought hard about why men report more frequent problems with remembering than women do, but have not been able to come up with an explanation," said Holmen. "The mystery remains unsolved."

The article is edited and translated from男人就是比女人更健忘 , source: China Youth Daily