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Examining Gender Differences in Neurocognitive Functioning Across Adulthood

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2019

Karen L. Siedlecki ,
Francesca Falzarano  and
Timothy A. Salthouse
Karen L. Siedlecki*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Fordham University, Bronx, NY, 10458, USA
Francesca Falzarano
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Fordham University, Bronx, NY, 10458, USA
Timothy A. Salthouse
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22904, USA
*
*Correspondence and reprint requests to: Karen L. Siedlecki, Department of Psychology, Fordham University, 113 W. 60th Street, New York, NY 10023, USA. E-mail: klsiedlecki@fordham.edu
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Abstract

Objective:

Previous research has shown that women have an advantage on verbal episodic memory and processing speed tasks, while men show an advantage on spatial ability measures. Previous work has also found differences in cognition across age. The current study examines gender differences in neurocognitive functioning across adulthood, whether age moderates this effect, and whether these differences remain consistent with practice across multiple testing sessions.

Method:

Data from the Virginia Cognitive Aging Project were used, which included participants between the ages of 18 and 99 years (N = 5125). Participants completed measures assessing five cognitive domains: episodic memory, processing speed, reasoning, spatial visualization, and vocabulary.

Results:

Results showed that gender was significantly related to memory, speed, and spatial visualization, but not to vocabulary or reasoning. Results of invariance analyses across men and women provided evidence of configural and metric invariance, along with partial scalar invariance. Additionally, there was little evidence that age or practice influenced the gender effect on neurocognition.

Conclusions:

Consistent with the previous research, these results suggest that there is a female advantage in episodic memory and processing speed, and a male advantage in spatial visualization. Gender was shown to influence cognition similarly across adulthood. Furthermore, the influence of gender remained the same across three sessions, which is consistent with the previous work that has shown that training does not differentially impact performance on spatial ability measures for females compared to males.

Keywords

AgingCognitionCross-sectionalMemoryProcessing speedSex differencesLifespanSpatial ability
Type
Regular Research
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 25 , Issue 10 , November 2019 , pp. 1051 - 1060
Copyright
Copyright © INS. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2019 

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