Middle-aged women have sharper memory--study

Researchers evaluating which sex has better memory found that females are sharper than their male counterparts, with chances of their cognitive skills improving with age, while that of men deteriorating.

The lead authors of the study Matthew Brown and Brian Dodgeon said, "Men performed significantly more poorly in the verbal memory tests: particularly on the delayed memory test.

"Previous research has produced similar results but this is the first time that such a large number of middle-aged men and women of the same age have taken memory tests of this kind in the UK."

Memory skills of 9,600 men and women tested
In a bid to understand how the middle-age brain works, researchers from the Institute of Education, University of London enrolled 9,600 men and women in England, Scotland, and Wales and pitted them against each other to test their powers of recall.

All the participants were members of the National Child Development Study whose lives were being trailed since the time of their birth in 1958. They were initially tested at age of 16 years and then, on turning 50, were asked to take part in memory tests.

Females outperformed males
Participants were assessed on their cognitive skills on the basis of four memory tests. In the first test, the subjects were read out 10 common words and were given two minutes to recall as many as they had retained.

In the next test held five minutes later, the subjects were asked to jot down the same 10 words. The investigators noted that in the verbal memory tests the fairer sex outperformed their male counter-parts.

On an average, the score of women was almost five percent more in the first test and nearly eight percent more in the second.

The third test that required the volunteers to cross out as many “Ps” and “Ws” as possible in a page randomly filled with rows of letters the women scanned the page faster. However, they ended up making more mistakes than the men.

The fourth test that comprised of naming as many animals as they could in the short space of a minute both the sexes finished with the same score. On an average, the participants were able to name 22 animals each.

Other highlights of the study
After taking into account the impact of exercise, diet, smoking, alcohol, and depression on the mental abilities of the subjects the researchers noted that those physically fit exhibited better scores as opposed to those who did not exercise.

Additionally, non-smokers, including ex-smokers, outperformed in the first of the “word recall” tests as compared to those given to smoking.

“Although measuring gender differences was not the central purpose of tests, the differences between men and women were interesting,” the authors said.