Bigger Brains Make Smarter People Study Says

udderly writes "People with bigger brains are smarter according to a Virginia Commonwealth University industrial and organizational psychologist, Michael A. McDaniel, Ph.D. McDaniel, who is a professor in management at VCU's School of Business. He reviewed 26 previous studies comparing brain size and intelligence and found that brain volume has a strong correlation to intelligence. According to McDaniel, 'for all age and sex groups, it is now very clear that brain volume and intelligence are related.' So, how big of a hat do you wear?"

Comments

Airheads?

[6800]

They forgot to subtract the inclosed volumn of air!

Savants

[headkase]

If you thought as good about everything as a savant thought about one thing, I believe it would show that with proper organization a well wired smaller mass can be capable of greater predictions of the environment than a larger brain mass.
But considering that we all share the same assembly instructions, apples to apples maybe bigger is better.

Re:Savants

[rpcxdr]

It is more likely the number of folds in the brain that predict intelligence, since folds imply a more complex wiring pattern.

This study would probably find a correlation between number of folds and brain size.

Re:Savants

[anothy]

i had a philosophy professor who, in an effort to illustrate some point or other, announced to the lecture hall that the grading system was being revised such that, rather than being based 35% on exams, 35% on papers, 20% on regular assignments, and 10% on attendance, it would now be graded 100% on phrenology. he and the TAs had discussed this at length, he explained, and while none of them actually believed the "science" was valid for predictive or investigative uses, they thought it was "kinda fun". while their decision was final, reaction from the class was solicited.

my response? i was thrilled. i told him that most of my professors seemed to be grading based on random elements unrelated to class performance, and i was excited to have one actually admit it.

Re:Savants

[Ungrounded Lightning]

If you thought as good about everything as a savant thought about one thing, I believe it would show that with proper organization a well wired smaller mass can be capable of greater predictions of the environment than a larger brain mass.

On the other hand there is an experiment that seem to indicate that cognitive ability is largely a function of number of instances of some simple pattern:

Experiment was run in a Y maze, i.e. subject placed in one end, food reward at one of the other two ends. Three subject types: Particular breed of fish, turtles (with about twice the brain mass), and a third I'll get to later.

Initially food is always on, say, the right at first. Subject learns to turn right. Once this learning is established, the maze is reversed. Subject must UNlearn "food on right" and learn "food on left". Measure number of trials to do this. Repeat.

With the fish it takes a while for them to figure out the food is now on the left. And then takes them about the same number trials to learn it's back on the right. You can do reversals until your grant runs out and it still takes them about the same number of trials to figure out that it's switched.

With the turtles, after a few reversals they suddenly get the concept of reversals. After that they catch on very quickly that the maze has swapped again.

Now the interesting part: Take embryos of the fish species. Remove the prototype brain tissue from one and insert it into another. Let it mature. Result is a chimera fish with a double-mass fish brain of apparently the normal organization - and about the size of the brain of the turtle.

Run these through the test and they learn reversals just like the turtle did. They "get it" with what is apparently just more-of-the-same rather than anything special.

With respect to savants: It's pretty clear that different areas of the brain are specialized for different things. So savants having normal-sized brains and being exceptionally good at one thing is not at odds with the idea that it's more neurons that make more smarts. They could as easily have given over more of their brain tissue to processing that specialty - possibly at the cost of starving other functions of neurons.

On the other hand, that doesn't eliminate other possibilities, such as better organization of that part of the brain, or more attention given to the subject in a more general-purpose system. The big-brained fish could be expected to have more of any specialized processor sections, as well as more "general-purpose cpu resources" to distribute (as "attention") to tasks like cracking the maze problem.

Brain size vs Neuron density

[Baron_Yam]

I'd suggest that the study is probably right about the average larger brain providing its owner with a higher intelligence than the average average-sized brain.

However, neuron count in specific brain areas would seem to be more significant, and higher densities would provide more neurons/volume and therefore enable a smaller brain to outperform a larger one.

Using hat size to select job applicants, as the linked article suggests, is probably not a good idea.

Re:Brain size vs Neuron density

[Life2Short]

The study was a meta-analysis of previous studies. Did you notice how small the sample sizes were for the original studies? About half had fewer than 50, it looked like. Not that that is a big problem, but how hard would it be to just go around to public schools and measure children's head size and gather their intelligence scores? Also, as always, causality cannot be inferred from correlation. No attempt was made to control for variables such as income, which might influence diet, health care, etc. Finally, if bigger heads really implied greater intelligence, wouldn't you expect offensive linemen on professional football teams to be some of the most intelligent people in the U.S.? For all I know, perhaps they are...

Einstein: The exception to the rule?

[WebHostingGuy]

As several sites have suggested 1, 2, 3, Einstein's brain fell in the range of normal for all measurements, except for the portion known as the inferior parietal lobes, located in the middle of the brain. This middle portion was 15% wider and had no groove.

So maybe the correct conclusion is not that bigger is better, but only the sections that matter. Remember, its not the size of the wand, its the magic in it that counts.

Elephants

[onion2k]

The average Asian elephant has a brain mass of 7.8kg.

I for one welcome our supremely intelligent, prehensile nosed overlords.

Re:Elephants

[Eric604]

Ofcource I don't have to tell you that a larger body requires a larger brain. So more accurate would be: iq=brainsize/bodysize. Size could be mass, volume or area and may not be linear.

To verify this I will conduct an experiment: I will amputate my feet and measure my iq before and afterwards.

Re:Uh....this isn't new news

[deutschemonte]

Only on slashdot would this be presented as an actual previous scientific proof.

Makes sense

[m50d]

I'm intelligent, and my friends always say I'm big-headed

Smarter People Study?

[kiltedtaco]

Did anyone else read the headline as: "Bigger brains make smarter people study, says ______"?

I don't buy it.

[Antonymous Flower]

Jeez, I hope not all Ph.D's are landed as easily as this guy's must have been. This is nothing more than modern phrenology. Here's a link to the actual publication: http://www.vcu.edu/uns/Releases/2005/june/McDaniel -Big%20Brain.pdf

It's mostly a literature review, which obviously attempts to use the 'majority must be right' fallacy to some mysterious end. The guy's an 'industrial psychologist,' though, so go figure.

To argue something so bold and broad that the size of the brain is an indicator for intelligence is frighteningly naive. If you leave your computer for a second and go meet a few people, you'll quickly realize that people with little heads have no problem outsmarting people with wide hats. This is about on par with 'people with big noses have big johnsons.' Don't read this publication if you're expecting any insight on anything other than a statistical analysis of random literature. You won't find any discussion of neuroplasticity here. I've a question I'd like to ask this guy: how come people 3 feet tall are smarter than you?

Jupiter is fucking huge, but let me assure you, I'd rather be back home. Bigger is not always better.

too simplistic a theory

[yagu]

As one other poster noted, Einstein had a brain that only fell in the range of "normal", giving lie to the theory size alone is an indicator of likely intelligence. Here's another interesting article I coincidentally read a couple days ago.

A couple of interesting things to take from this article:

• brain size relates closely to gender
• there are notable physiological differences in brains along gender lines
• however, there are not noticable differences in intelligence between genders
• but, there are differences in how intelligence manifests between the genders.

Before drawing conclusions on brain size and correlation with intelligence therein, read this article... it sheds far more light on this discussion than does the research "summary".

Interestingly, even though men and women have fairly significant differences in brain sizes, this article shows that women's brains develop differently than mens, with density in different regions and layers possibly offsetting size differences. I'll not go over the entire article, read it.... it's good.

Sidebar: Oh, and by the way, my brain is so small, I use the extra space inside my skull to store my CD collection.

Re:Too bad this comes out now...

[MyLongNickName]

Brain size... not chin size :)

Spam of the future...

[hugesmile]

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Re:WHAT rule?

[Chris Burke]

Woah - hold it right there, this type of political correctness is the antithesis of science.

Whoa yerself. I'm not rejecting the study based on possible non-PC conclusions, I'm rejecting it because it is the same crap we've seen before that always suffers from the same logical fallacies. That annoys me.

The fact that there will be racist and sexist conclusions drawn from this study also annoys me, because it's the Bell Curve all over again -- crap science used to justify an "our preconceived societal prejudices are actually scientifically valid biological innevitabilities" conclusion.

it might actually be true that physically smaller races have slightly lower average intelligence. Has it been proven otherwise? No. Never.

Has it been proven true? No, never. Have people tried? Yes, repeatedly. Have the same mistakes been made resulting in the same self-confirming conclusions? Yes, repeatedly.

As long as we're talking about unproven hypothesis, how about this one: There is an inherent "intelligence" that can be measured as a single numerical value (or small number of values). This has not ever been proven. We don't even know what intelligence is. We know we have it, but like "consciousness" or "creativity" we can't define it in a way that turns it into a physical entity, much less a quantifiable physical entitiy. And so far there is no indication that this is even possible. But this study is predicated on this hypothesis being true.

I don't know why this study seems to offend you so much. It only talks about averages - it does not mean that someone with a small head cannot be intelligent, it's still possible, just less likely on average, if the results are true. (Is your head smaller than average?)

Quite the opposite. I have a large head, though I don't know how large my brain is. I think I'm pretty smart, but I know I'm very good at taking tests -- especially multiple-choice standardized tests. I have no doubt I'd fall on or above whatever curve they drew. I have no personal ego at stake here whatsoever. I'm a smart privileged white male (with a big head) -- these things always come out in my favor, but that doesn't make me less likely to view them as crap.

So why does the study offend me? Because first it is crap, and second because these studies are always commissioned, accepted (despite the flaws) and used by two groups of people:

1) Bureaucrats. Whether in business, education, or government, they want to be able to take a person and give them a single "goodness" value so they can just put everybody into a sort function and pick the top N. Instead of helping every student reach as high as they can, selectively help the "smartest" and let the inherently less smart prepare for blue collar jobs. Do away with annoying and subjective interviews; managers want a quantitative way to pick "the best". Never been proven to be possible, but it doesn't stop them.

2) Racist social conservatives. What looks like social injustice is actually just the natural order of things. Downtrodden minorities aren't really downtrodden, they're just in their natural place as inferiors as determined by our perfect and blind meritocracy. Women aren't discriminated against, they are rightly excluded from demanding jobs because they aren't as capable. These are biological facts that cannot be changed, so there is no point to social programs that attempt to address these issues.

McDaniel is clearly in the Bureaucrat camp, being as he "specializes in the study of intelligence and other predictors of job performance." He also claims, after stating several (unproven) aspects of the intelligence he is testing: "The use of intelligence tests in screening job applicants has substantial economic benefits for organizations." I have no reason to think he is racist or sexist, but I guarantee those who are will glom onto this study and refuse to let go.

This has been done