The Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test: Age-, Gender- and Education-Related Normative Data for The Iranian Healthy Population

Memory and learning have particular importance due to their ubiquitous nature in everyday life and the high prevalence of related complaints. The present study aimed to provide normative data for one of the most widely used tests of verbal memory and learning in Iran and to assess the effect of demographic variables of age, gender, and education on its various measures.

The study was conducted as part of the Iranian Brain Imaging Database (IBID) project. The sample consisted of 300 normal individuals in the age range of 20 to 70 years, with an equal number of participants in each age decade (#60). The sample was classified by five decades, including 20-30-year-olds, 31-40-year-olds, 41-50-year-olds, 51-60-year-olds, and 61-70-year-olds. Each age decade was divided equally between the genders. The Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT), which was defined in terms of 10 scores on learning, recall, and recognition, was used to assess verbal learning and memory.

The correlation matrix among the variables shows that all three variables of age, gender, and education had a significant correlation with most RAVLT measures. Among the three demographic variables, age had the strongest correlation with most RAVLT scores. Three-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) showed that the effect of age and gender on memory and learning measures was significant. On the other hand, the effect of education on some measures was statistically significant. In addition, the mean and standard deviation of 10 RAVLT measures classified by gender and education years in the five age groups are provided.

The findings show that while increasing age, verbal memory, and learning performance decline, women outperform men, and education affects some indicators of learning and memory. These findings emphasize the importance of using age-, gender- and education-related normative data in clinical, educational, and research settings.