title: Sex differences in cognition: the role of handedness.
abstract: Women typically outperform men on episodic memory and verbal fluency tasks, whereas men tend to excel on visuospatial tasks. As the vast majority of individuals are right-handed (RH), sex differences in the cognitive literature reflect laterality-specific patterns for RH individuals. We examined the magnitude of cognitive sex differences as a function of hand dominance in samples of RH and non-RH individuals. Results showed the expected sex differences in the RH group, whereas these differences were unreliable in the non-RH group. These results are discussed in terms of earlier findings of a more bilateral representation of language functions in non-RH men, possibly affecting their visuospatial performance negatively and their verbal performance positively, thereby reducing cognitive sex differences.
authors.affiliation: Karolinska Institutet, NVS, Aging Research Center, Gävlegatan 16, 8tr, S-113 30 Stockholm, Sweden. petra.thilers@ki.se
authors.forename: Petra P
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: Thilers
authors.forename: Stuart W S
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: MacDonald
authors.forename: Agneta
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Herlitz
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D012016:Reference Values; D012737:Sex Factors; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*