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

Handedness affects cognitive processing strengths. Consistent with the predominant right hemisphere motor control of the left hand, left-handed older adults have superior immediate and delayed visuospatial memory in comparison with right-handers. Investigations of handedness effects on verbal memory in older adults are, however, scarce and the findings inconsistent. The present study thus examined whether left-handed, right-handed and ambidextrous older adults differ in their subjective and objective verbal memory performance. Data were drawn from Wave 9 of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), including measures of handedness, self-rated memory, immediate verbal recall, and delayed verbal recall from 51,206 older adults (Females = 28,461, Males = 22,745; M age = 72.1, SD = 7.3, range 60–102). General linear modelling examined the effects of handedness and gender on subjective and objective memory, using age as a covariate. Handedness influenced self-rated memory, with ambidextrous participants rating their memory ability higher than right-handers; however, handedness had no effect on either immediate or delayed recall scores. In contrast gender predicted objective memory performance, with females scoring higher than males for both recall tasks, though not for self-rated memory. Overall, these results suggest that while ambidextrous people are more optimistic about their own memory, handedness does not influence verbal memory performance in older adults.