Sex Differences in Neuropsychological Performance

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate male and female performance on a subset of Halstead's ( 2 ) test instruments and procedures, further developed by Reitan (4 ) . The size of Gordon, O'Dell, and Bozeman's ( 1 ) original sample was expanded to 36, in part since several comparisons were almost significant. In that study male subjects did exhibit statistically superior performance in dominant and nondominant hand strength and dominant and nondominant finger tapping. Females were superior on left-hand fingertip number writing. As in the first study all subjects were right-handed and between the ages of 17 and 35 yr. of age. Since there was a significant difference in the mean age of the male subjects (M = 20.6, SD = 3.5) in comparison with the female subjects ( M = 18.9, SD = LO), an analysis of covariance was performed on the d3ta.l All of the five significant differences in the first study held up; in addition, the female subjects were significantly superior on left-hand finger agnosia, Tacrual Performance Tesc Memory and Location scores. There were no significant differences on right-hand fingertip number writing and finger agnosia, as well as dominant, nondominant, and both hand tactual performance scores. The size of the differences indicates that only the motor functions (strength and tapping scores) are of practical significance. Revisions of cut-off scores for the tapping test ( 5 ) seem adequate to compensate for the significant sex differences. As in systematic sex variation on WAIS subtest scores ( 3 ) , many of the other Halstead-Reitan differences seem to be of minimal clinical importance. For females the cluster of left-hand tactile and the visuo-spatial memory tasks suggest possible superior right-hemisphere functioning. This is of theoretical significance if not in the application of the Halstead tests in clinical situations.

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