Sex Differences in Episodic Memory

Herlitz, Agneta; Rehnman, Jenny

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008.00547.x

Cited by 245 publications

(202 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Previous studies with young and older adults suggested a benefit for women in verbal episodic memory, as well as a comparable benefit for men in the visuospatial domain (see Herlitz, Airaksinen, & Nordstrom, 1999;Herlitz, Nilsson, & Backman, 1997;Herlitz & Rehnman, 2008;Lewin et al 2001). The memory benefit for verbal materials observed in women over men was confirmed in a study by Herlitz and Yonker (2002), who tested young adult men and women in a series of tasks involving the recall and recognition of verbal material, faces, and abstract pictorial stimuli.…”

Section: Gender Differences In Episodic Memorymentioning

confidence: 53%

“…Past literature had indicated that women have superior verbal memory ability as compared with men (e.g., Herlitz & Rehnman, 2008;Meinz & Salthouse, 1998), as well as that males suffer a larger age-related decline in tasks requiring binding (e.g., Maylor et al, 2007), but these differences had not been tested with respect to the AD of older adults. Thus, the AD may be due to a decline in the associative memory of men relative to women.…”

Section: Gender Differences In Episodic Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effects of emotional arousal and gender on the associative memory deficit of older adults

et al. 2011

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In this study we assessed the potential moderating roles of stimulus type (emotionally arousing) and participants' characteristics (gender) in older adults' associative memory deficit. In two experiments, young and older participants studied lists that included neutral and emotionally arousing word pairs (positive and negative) and completed recognition tests for the words and their associations. In Experiment 1, the majority of the word pairs were composed of two nouns, whereas in Experiment 2 they were composed of adjective-noun pairs. The results extend evidence for older adults' associative deficit and suggest that older and younger adults' item memory is improved for emotionally arousing words. However, associative memory for the word pairs did not benefit (and even showed a slight decline) from emotionally arousing words, which was the case for both younger and older adults. In addition, in these experiments, gender appeared to moderate the associative deficit of older adults, with older males but not females demonstrating this deficit.Keywords Aging . Episodic memory . Associative memory . Gender . ArousalOne issue that continues to pervade aging research is the problem of fully explaining why episodic memory declines across the lifespan. It is essential to understand the nature of this decline in order to help older adults maintain functionality throughout their lives. Previous work has suggested a number of contributing factors to this episodic memory decline, including deficits in semantic processing, metamemory, and deliberate recollection (see Light, 1991). Other theories have suggested that episodic memory problems may be the result of global declines in functions such as processing speed (Salthouse, 1996), attentional resources (Craik, 1983(Craik, , 1986, or inhibitory control (Hasher & Zacks, 1988) that have broader consequences for cognition.Of particular interest in the present study is the reduced ability in later adulthood to properly bind and associate items at encoding and to retrieve those associations at a later time, suggested as one potential mechanism underlying age-related episodic memory decline (e.g., Chalfonte & Johnson, 1996;Naveh-Benjamin, 2000;Old & Naveh-Benjamin, 2008a). The aims of the present study were to assess the effect of emotional arousal on the associative-binding deficit of older adults and to consider potential gender differences that may exist in older adults' associative memory. Each of these issues will be addressed in turn. Associative-binding deficit and episodic memory in agingChalfonte and Johnson (1996) investigated memory for complex events and their individual features in young and older adults. Their results showed a disproportionate decline in the older adult group for memories involving the binding of stimulus features (a picture, its color, and its location) relative to the decline in memory for each separate feature. This finding is in line with Naveh-Benjamin's (2000) associative-deficit hypothesis, which claims that a central factor in episo...

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Section: Gender Differences In Episodic Memorymentioning

confidence: 53%

Section: Gender Differences In Episodic Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of emotional arousal and gender on the associative memory deficit of older adults

et al. 2011

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“…Igualmente, también obtienen una puntuación superior en plasticidad cognitiva evaluada a partir de la puntuación de ganancia en la prueba AVLT-PA. Estos resultados confirman la hipótesis de que las mujeres en la vejez muestran un rendimiento superior a los hombres en tareas de memoria de tipo verbal (Aarsten, Martin y Zimprich, 2004;Herlitz y Rehnman, 2008). No obstante, estudios previos hacían prever un mejor rendimiento en fluidez verbal en las mujeres (Gerstorf et al, 2006).…”

Section: Discussionunclassified

Diferencias entre hombres y mujeres mayores en funcionamiento cognitivo y calidad de vida

Navarro¹,

Calero²,

Calero-García³

2015

Ejihpe

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En la actualidad, existe aún cierta controversia sobre la influencia de la variable sexo sobre el funcionamiento cognitivo y la calidad de vida en la vejez. El principal objetivo del estudio que se presenta es analizar las posibles diferencias entre hombres y mujeres mayores en relación con sus habilidades cognitivas y su calidad de vida. La muestra del estudio está formada por 264 personas mayores de entre 65 y 95 años de las provincias de Jaén y Granada que fueron evaluadas con una prueba de screening cognitivo, un test de fluidez verbal, una tarea de atención sostenida, una prueba de evaluación del potencial de aprendizaje, una tarea de memoria de trabajo y un cuestionario de calidad de vida. Los resultados muestran que, una vez que se controla el nivel educativo y la edad de los participantes, los hombres muestran un rendimiento superior en tareas de screening cognitivo, memoria de trabajo, atención sostenida y fluidez verbal; mientras que las mujeres rinden por encima de los hombres en tareas de memoria y aprendizaje verbal. En calidad de vida, los hombres muestran una mejor salud y una mayor independencia, mientras que las mujeres puntúan por encima de los hombres en integración social y uso de servicios sociales.Palabras clave: Funcionamiento cognitivo, vejez, calidad de vida, diferencias en función de sexo. Differences between elderly women and men in cognitive functioning and quality of life.Today, there is still some controversy about the influence of the variable sex on cognitive functioning and quality of life in old age. The main objective of the study presented is to analyze possible differences between older men and women in relation to their cognitive abilities and quality of life. The study sample consists of 264 persons aged between 65 and 95 years from the provinces of Jaen and Granada who were assessed with a cognitive screening test, a verbal fluency test, a task of sustained attention, a task to assess learning potential, a working memory task, and of quality of life questionnaire. The results show that, once the educational level and age of participants is controlled, men show superior performance on cognitive screening tasks, working memory, sustained attention and verbal fluency; while women performance above men in verbal memory tasks and verbal learning. In quality of life, men show better health and greater independence, while women scored higher than men on social integration and use of social services.

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“…They proposed that in comparison to the digit-span performance, LNS performance showed a greater decline with increased age, probably due to a greater deterioration in executive functioning that underlies LNS performance. In terms of gender differences, a female advantage in episodic memory retrieval is predominantly reported (e.g., Geffen, Moar, O'Hanlon, Clark, & Geffen, 1990;Herlitz, Nilsson, & Bäckman, 1997;Herlitz & Rehnman, 2008;Hultsch, Masson, & Small, 1991). However, there are mixed findings about the presence of gender differences in WM (Loring-Meier & Halpern, 1999;Lynn & Irwing, 2008;Schmidt et al, 2009).…”

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confidence: 91%

The contributions of handedness and working memory to episodic memory

2016

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Past studies have independently shown associations of working memory and degree of handedness with episodic memory retrieval. The current study takes a step ahead by examining whether handedness and working memory independently predict episodic memory. In agreement with past studies, there was an inconsistent-handed advantage for episodic memory; however, this advantage was absent for working memory tasks. Furthermore, regression analyses showed handedness, and complex working memory predicted episodic memory performance at different times. Results are discussed in light of theories of episodic memory and hemispheric interaction.

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Sex Differences in Episodic Memory

Cited by 245 publications

References 18 publications

The effects of emotional arousal and gender on the associative memory deficit of older adults

The effects of emotional arousal and gender on the associative memory deficit of older adults

Diferencias entre hombres y mujeres mayores en funcionamiento cognitivo y calidad de vida

The contributions of handedness and working memory to episodic memory

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