Sex/Gender Differences in Verbal Fluency and Verbal-Episodic Memory: A Meta-Analysis

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Human Behavior

Background:

• Existing research suggests potential sex/gender differences in verbal abilities, with women often outperforming men in verbal fluency and memory.
• Previous meta-analyses on sex/gender differences in verbal fluency are outdated (1988), and a comprehensive meta-analysis on verbal memory, particularly in neuropsychological contexts, is lacking.

Approach:

• Conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis synthesizing 496 effect sizes from 355,173 participants.
• Analyzed sex/gender differences in phonemic fluency, semantic fluency, verbal recall, and verbal recognition.

Key Points:

• Women/girls demonstrated a small advantage in phonemic fluency (d=0.12-0.13) but not semantic fluency (d=0.01-0.02).
• A significant female advantage was observed in verbal recall (d=0.28) and recognition (d=0.12-0.17).
• This female advantage remained stable across the lifespan and over the past 50 years, though effect sizes are small.

Conclusions:

• A small, consistent female advantage exists in phonemic fluency, recall, and recognition, partly influenced by publication bias.
• The observed differences in semantic fluency appear to be category-dependent.
• Variability in findings suggests other factors like language and geographic region may contribute to sex/gender differences in verbal abilities.