A case-controlled study investigating gender differences in Face Name Hobby Recall (FNHR) performance in healthy community-dwelling older adults

TL;DR

This study found that older adult females outperformed males in face-name-hobby recall tests, with no gender bias in performance based on the sex of the faces presented.

Contribution

The study is the first to report gender differences in face-name-hobby recall performance in older adults using a case-controlled design.

Findings

Older adult females showed significantly better immediate and delayed recall on the FNHR test than males.

Improved performance by females persisted for up to 12 months in a longitudinal subset.

No same-sex gender bias was observed in FNHR test performance, except for male participants showing better recall with female faces.

Abstract

Difficulties remembering the faces and the names of individuals are two of the most common memory complaints among older adults (OA’s), with impaired performance on face-name recall tests implicated to be one of the earliest changes during the transition to Alzheimer’s disease. Studies in children, young-, and middle-aged adults have identified that females generally perform better on face-name association tests than males, although little is known in terms of female versus male performance in OA’s. Studies in these same age groups have identified the existence of a “gender bias” whereby face-name recall is improved when facial images are from the same sex as the individual being evaluated. In the current study we employed a case-controlled study design to evaluate 115 OA males and 115 OA females in terms of their performance on the Face Name Hobby Recall (FNHR) test. OA females were observed to have significantly higher levels of both immediate and delayed recall on the FHNR test as compared to males. Improved FNHR test performance by females persisted for up to 12-months in the subset of 21 males and 21 females in the study for whom longitudinal data was available. The rates of learning for names and hobbies did not significantly differ between OA males and females. OA males and females did not exhibit improved FNHR test performance for facial images of their same sex, although OA males did show improved FHNR test performance with female faces as compared to male faces. Data from the current study have implications for future studies that examine the causes and consequences of perturbations in face-name recall in the context of aging and dementia-related research.

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