Age-related sex differences in verbal memory

Abstract

Verbal learning and memory were studied in 196 healthy men and women aged 40 to 89. The Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Task (RAVLT), a 15‐word list, was presented over five trials followed by free recall after each trial. A recognition trial of 50 words subsequently was administered. A stepwise regression that examined the contributions of age, sex, and vocabulary on the five trials of the RAVLT showed that age and sex accounted for a significant portion of the variance on each trial. Vocabulary accounted for a significant portion of the variance only on trials 4 and 5. The recognition trial was not affected by age, sex, or vocabulary. Men had lower scores overall as compared to women. In the older age group (ages 66‐89), this difference was significant on trials two through five. Possible mechanisms that may underlie these age‐related sex differences in learning curves are discussed.

Performance of normal adults on Rey Auditory Learning Test: a pilot study

“…The mean and median scores were very close to the maximum possible score for the recognition test, which suggests a ceiling effect for normal subjects. however, individuals with impaired memory perform poorly on this test 8 .…”

“…In contrast to our findings, several studies suggest sex influences A1 subitem performance, with women outperforming men 8,14 . Nevertheless, this effect was not observed in a previous Brazilian study 9 .…”

“…The negative influence of age, revealed in the present study has been reported in earlier work 9,11,13,14,16 . however, a number of studies in the literature did not confirm the negative effect of age on the test, stating this variable had no influence 8,12 . All the studies that examined the effects of educational level on recognition scores found this variable to have positive influence.…”

“…however, this effect was not always independent of the age 11 . Influence of sex was also absent in previous studies 8,9 , but conflicting results exist in the literature 14 .…”

Computerized Neurocognitive Scanning: II. The Profile of Schizophrenia

“…This differs from some reports of less neurocognitive impairment in women than men with schizophrenia (Goldstein et al 1998;Hoff et al 1996), or more impairment in women than men (Lewine et al 1996), but is consistent with earlier reports from our center reporting similar impairment in male and female patients. The difference favoring women with schizophrenia for verbal memory and men for spatial processing may reflect normal sex differences in these domains (Bleecker et al 1988;Gur et al 1999aGur et al ,2001Kimura and Harshman 1984;Kramer et al 1988). Thus, it seems that although clinical measures favoring women do correlate with neurocognitive functioning, the effect is not sufficient to produce a group difference in neuropsychological performance.…”