The heritability of memory in the Western Reserve Twin Project.

The heritability of memory ability was examined using 137 monozygotic and 127 same-sex dizygotic twin pairs from the Western Reserve Twin Project. Memory was assessed by eight measures drawn from the following batteries: the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children--Revised, the Colorado Test of Specific Cognitive Abilities, and the Cognitive Abilities Test. The results indicate that phenotypic correlations are generally low across these memory measures and heritability varies as a function of memory measure. These findings suggest that the heritability of memory varies as a function of the memory measure employed. Therefore, future studies investigating heritability estimates of memory should use a multimeasure battery to study this construct.