Influence of Verbal Intelligence, Sex, Age, and Education on the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test

The effects of verbal intelligence, sex, age, and education on the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) were investigated. The RAVLT is a widely used instrument for assessing memory dysfunction. Healthy volunteers (N = 114) between the ages of 40 and 84 years participated. In the best-fitting regression model, verbal intelligence and sex accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in performance on every learning trial of the RAVLT. Age was related to performance only on Trials 1 and 2, and education was not related to performance. Higher verbal intelligence was associated with better performance and women performed consistently better than men. These results suggest that many tests reporting an aging effect may, in reality, be reflecting heterogeneity in verbal intelligence and sex differences in the populations studied. Therefore, research and clinical conclusions based on such aging effects should be interpreted with caution.