Naoko Nagahara

Sex Difference in Cognitive Aging for Letter Fluency and Semantic Fluency

This study examined the sex difference in cognitive aging for verbal abilities. To examine developmental changes on Letter Fluency (LFT) and Semantic Fluency (SFT) tests, healthy 224 women and 139 men over 40 years old participated in this study. The results showed that performance of both sex in the 40’s and 50’s remained at the same level, but the performance declining for the LFT and the SFT after the 70’s were not parallel. For the LFT, men showed a steep decline from 50’s to 70’s, whereas women showed a gradual decline from 50’s to 80’s. For the SFT, men showed a sharp decline from 50’s to 70’s and remained at a similar level after the 70’s, whereas women did not show a steep performance decline from their 50’s to 70’s and their performance level in 70’s was the same as in 80’s.