Education, Sex, and Age Shape Rey Complex Figure Performance in Cognitively Normal Adults: An Interpretable Machine...

Area of Science:

• Neuropsychology
• Cognitive Science
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Demographic factors (education, sex, age) impact cognitive test performance.
• The influence on Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and Rey Complex Figure (CF) tests is not fully understood in healthy adults.
• Accurate interpretation of neuropsychological assessments requires understanding demographic influences.

Purpose of the Study:

• Characterize the impact of education, sex, and age on MoCA and CF performance in a large, healthy sample.
• Identify key cognitive features influenced by demographic variables.
• Inform normative standards and clinical interpretation of these widely used cognitive tests.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of data from 926 cognitively healthy adults (MoCA score ≥ 24).
• Utilized supervised machine learning and statistical models to identify predictive features.
• Quantified feature importance for accuracy and time-based measures, adjusting for demographics.

Main Results:

• Higher education correlated with longer encoding times and better recall.
• Sex differences observed in visuospatial detail recall and language subtests (women showed advantages).
• Age impacted task completion speed and spatial memory accuracy.

Conclusions:

• Education, sex, and age systematically influence MoCA and CF performance in cognitively healthy individuals.
• Findings underscore the necessity of incorporating demographic adjustments into cognitive assessment norms.
• Improved diagnostic precision and interpretability of cognitive assessments can be achieved through demographic considerations.