Age and sex differences in cerebral asymmetry as a function of competition for "time" and "space" in a successive auditory matching task.

Subjects in three age groups identified verbally encoded (VE) and nonverbally encoded (NVE) stimuli as "same" or "different". Matching times increased with age, but differentially for men and women and VE and NVE stimuli. Evidence for asymmetry effects occurred for middle age and older men, but only when a secondary memory task produced competion for "time" and "space" in the left hemisphere.