Although there are exceptions, in general, relative to men women appear to have better long-term episodic memory—memories of events or experiences, such as weddings or accidents, that tend to be verbal in nature, meaning the memories are associated with words, whether heard, spoken, or written. Another form of episodic memory is visuospatial memory, meaning the memory is associated with pictures, images, or other visual cues; however, fewer visuospatial memories appear to be stored as episodic memory.
Women have the upper hand in storing and recalling verbal episodic memories, whereas men have the upper hand in storing and recalling visuospatial episodic memories. Scientists have also discovered that women are very adept at remembering the faces of strangers and nearly anything associated with emotion, which may or may not be stored as episodic memory. Of course, what is important is not who has the best memory but how our memories work, the understanding of which may help resolve the curious observation that the ways in which men and women remember information seem to compliment one another.