Handedness Influences Subjective Memory Ratings but not Objective Memory Performance in Older Adults

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Gerontology

Background:

• Handedness influences cognitive processing, with left-handers showing superior visuospatial memory.
• Research on handedness and verbal memory in older adults is limited and yields inconsistent findings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate differences in subjective and objective verbal memory performance among older adults based on handedness (left, right, ambidextrous).

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from 51,206 older adults in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) Wave 9.
• Assessed handedness, self-rated memory, immediate verbal recall, and delayed verbal recall.
• Employed general linear modelling with age as a covariate to analyze effects of handedness and gender.

Main Results:

• Handedness significantly affected self-rated memory, with ambidextrous individuals reporting better memory than right-handers.
• No significant effect of handedness was observed on immediate or delayed verbal recall scores.
• Gender predicted objective memory performance, with females outperforming males on recall tasks.

Conclusions:

• Handedness does not appear to influence objective verbal memory performance in older adults.
• Ambidextrous older adults may possess greater confidence in their memory abilities.
• Gender is a significant predictor of verbal memory performance in this demographic.