The Association of Age, Sex, and Educational Attainment on Verbal Associative Memory Performance among Hispanic Individuals with Differing First Spoken Language

Introduction: Hispanics are the fastest growing segment of the elderly population in the USA. An assessment of their English and Spanish language dominance is important to consider for cognitive aging. In this manuscript, we utilized an internet-based study (MindCrowd [MC]) to recruit Hispanic participants from within the USA who differ on their self-reported first spoken language (FSL) and examined the influence of the known three most significant associated factors – age, sex, and educational attainment – on their verbal memory performance. Methods: We utilized participants who joined MC after the launch of the updated site in June 2022. Participants were included if they self-reported their age between 18 and 90, their biological sex as either male or female, and their maximum educational attainment and completed the entire 10-min MC cognitive testing experience which includes an assessment of verbal associative memory (paired-associates learning [PAL]). Additionally, we included only those individuals who participated in English; however, the Hispanic cohort was split into two groups depending on their self-reported FSL as either English or Spanish. Propensity matching was also used to create a cohort whose FSL was Spanish and who matched the demographics of the FSL English Hispanic cohort. Regression statistics were used to calculate significance and estimate effect sizes. Results: Age, biological sex, and educational attainment are all significantly associated with PAL performance in both Hispanic cohorts, regardless of the participant’s FSL. Compared to non-Hispanic MC participants, age had a more negative influence on PAL performance in Hispanics, while the association of educational attainment was similar across both groups. Interestingly, FSL Spanish Hispanics demonstrated a less negative association of biological sex with PAL performance. We used propensity score matching as a sensitivity analysis to assess the robustness of our regression findings in the same cohort. Conclusions: The three known factors associated with verbal memory performance (age, sex, and educational attainment) are also significantly associated with Hispanic individuals, including those who spoke English or Spanish as their FSL. However, the strength of several factors differed across groups, including age and sex. The study highlights the importance of considering factors predicting cognitive aging outcomes in large, well-characterized, but separate demographic groups.