Abstract: Here, we present an overview of sex differences in cognitive functions with a special focus on sex differences in episodic memory. Results show that women perform at a substantially higher level than men on verbal production, episodic memory, and face recognition tasks. Men perform at a higher level on visuospatial tasks, including visuospatial episodic memory tasks. The popular hypothesis that steroid hormones affect the magnitude of sex differences in cognitive functions is critically discussed, and the conclusion is that neither endogenous testosterone nor estradiol affect cognitive sex differences substantially.

Key words: cognitive functions, episodic memory, sex differences, steroid hormones