It’s not just the men in your life who seem to forget important things. Memory studies have left researchers surprised to see how much men forget. According to Professor Jostein Holmen, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, "It was surprising to see that men forget more than women. This has not been documented before. It was also surprising to see that men are just as forgetful whether they are 30 or 60 years old.” This research was published in the journal BMC Psychology. A large group of participants were asked how often they had problems remembering things; whether they had problems remembering names and dates, if they could remember what they did one year ago and whether they were able to remember details from conversations. Men had the most problems answering eight out of nine questions. Professor Holmen said "We have speculated a lot about why men report more frequent problems with remembering than women do, but have not been able to find an explanation. This is still an unsolved mystery". So don’t be too hard on the men in your life; they really do find it more difficult to remember your birthday and anniversary! Reference: Jostein Holmen, Ellen Langballe, Kristian Midthjell, Turid Holmen, Arvid Fikseaunet, Ingvild Saltvedt, Kristian Tambs. Gender differences in subjective memory impairment in a general population: the HUNT study, Norway. BMC Psychology, 2013; 1 (1): 19 DOI: 10.1186/2050-7283-1-19