The English idiom “highbrow,” derived from a physical description of a skull barely able to contain the brain inside of it, comes from a long-held belief in the existence of a link between brain size and intelligence.
The English idiom “highbrow,” derived from a physical description of a skull barely able to contain the brain inside of it, comes from a long-held belief in the existence of a link between brain size and intelligence.
For more than 200 years, scientists have looked for such an association. Begun using rough measures, such as estimated skull volume or head circumference, the investigation became more sophisticated in the last few decades, when MRIs offered a highly accurate accounting of brain volume.
Yet the connection has remained hazy and fraught, with many studies failing to account for confounding variables, such as height and socioeconomic status. The published studies are also subject to “publication bias,” the tendency to publish only more noteworthy findings.
A new study, the largest of its kind, led by Gideon Nave of the Wharton School and Philipp Koellinger of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, has clarified the connection. Using MRI-derived information about brain size in connection with cognitive performance test results and educational-attainment measures obtained from more than 13,600 people, the researchers found that, as previous studies have suggested, a positive relationship does exist between brain volume and performance on cognitive tests. But that finding comes with important caveats.
Read more at University of Pennsylvania
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