Wisconsin Card Sorting Test performance in healthy, older adults: relationship to age, sex, education, and IQ.

We obtained Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) scores on 91 (35 male and 56 female) healthy, well-educated individuals aged 45 to 83. Women scored better than men on six WCST scores (categories, errors, perseverative responses, % perseverative errors, % conceptual level responses, and trials to first category), while subjects with more than 16 years of education outscored those limited to high school education on four measures (perseverative responses, errors, % perseverative errors, % conceptual level responses). Individuals older than 70 years of age scored less well than younger subjects on only two indices (errors, % conceptual level responses). Full Scale IQ was not related to WCST scores. Our findings suggest that WCST scores should be interpreted within the context of patient gender, education, and age.