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Don't Blame Me, Blame My Stubby Fingers!
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Saturday, June 2, 2007
1:35:00 PM EDT
Hearing Night Moves -- Bob Seeger
Does the length of your ring finger signal math ability? Maybe:
Boys with the longest ring fingers relative to their index fingers tend to excel in math, according to a new study. In girls, shorter ring fingers predict better verbal skills. The link, according to the researchers, is that testosterone levels in the womb influence both finger length and brain development.
In the latest such study, psychologist Mark Brosnan and colleagues at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom photocopied the hands of 74 boys and girls aged 6 and 7. They compared the measurements of the second and fourth fingers with the children's scores on a standard U.K. test of math and literacy. In boys, the lower the ratio, the better their math scores, the team reports in the May issue of the British Journal of Psychology. The boys with the lowest ratios also were the ones whose abilities were most skewed in the direction of math rather than literacy. These differences are small but significant, says Brosnan. With the girls, there was no correlation between finger ratio and numeracy, but those with higher ratios--presumably indicating low testosterone levels--had better scores on verbal abilities.
Be this as it may, I wouldn't really start using a low ring-to-index-finger ratio as an excuse for doing poorly with math; I personally seem to recall some stubby-fingered math majors in college. I suspect most math is learnable by anyone willing to make the effort, regardless of finger length. I'm just saying.
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1:35:00 PM EDT
Hearing Night Moves -- Bob Seeger
Don't Blame Me, Blame My Stubby Fingers!
Does the length of your ring finger signal math ability? Maybe:
Boys with the longest ring fingers relative to their index fingers tend to excel in math, according to a new study. In girls, shorter ring fingers predict better verbal skills. The link, according to the researchers, is that testosterone levels in the womb influence both finger length and brain development.
In the latest such study, psychologist Mark Brosnan and colleagues at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom photocopied the hands of 74 boys and girls aged 6 and 7. They compared the measurements of the second and fourth fingers with the children's scores on a standard U.K. test of math and literacy. In boys, the lower the ratio, the better their math scores, the team reports in the May issue of the British Journal of Psychology. The boys with the lowest ratios also were the ones whose abilities were most skewed in the direction of math rather than literacy. These differences are small but significant, says Brosnan. With the girls, there was no correlation between finger ratio and numeracy, but those with higher ratios--presumably indicating low testosterone levels--had better scores on verbal abilities.
Be this as it may, I wouldn't really start using a low ring-to-index-finger ratio as an excuse for doing poorly with math; I personally seem to recall some stubby-fingered math majors in college. I suspect most math is learnable by anyone willing to make the effort, regardless of finger length. I'm just saying.
Written by johnmscalzi Blog about this entry |
Add to del.icio.us | digg this
