One reason for the lack of female participation in science could be due to cognitive differences between males and females. The present study measured verbal and spatial working memory for 15 males and 48 females. Males were found to have both a larger verbal memory and a larger spatial memory. Participants then read texts that either presented the information in both the text and diagram, or in only the text or only the diagram. Recall and question answering data found that males comprehended the material better than females. It was also found that information from the text was remembered better than information from the diagram. The results were explained in terms of working memory span and comprehension. (Contains 2 tables.)