title: Sex differences in episodic memory: the impact of verbal and visuospatial ability.
abstract: The impact of verbal and visuospatial ability on sex differences in episodic memory was investigated. One hundred men and 100 women, 2040 years old, participated in a series of verbal and visuospatial tasks. Episodic memory was assessed in tasks that, to a greater or lesser extent, were verbal or visuospatial in nature. Results showed that women excelled in verbal production tasks and that men performed at a superior level on a mental rotation task. In addition, women tended to perform at a higher level than men on most episodic memory tasks. Taken together, the results demonstrated that (a) women perform at a higher level than men on most verbal episodic memory tasks and on some episodic memory tasks with a visuospatial component, and (b) women's higher performance on episodic memory tasks cannot fully be explained by their superior performance on verbal production tasks.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Stockholm, Stockholm Gerontology Research Center, and Karolinska Institute, Sweden. ahz@psychology.su.se
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Herlitz
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Airaksinen
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Nordström
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D008571:Men / Q000523:psychology*; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception; D014930:Women / Q000523:psychology*