AGL 40.00 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
AIRLINK 127.04 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
BOP 6.67 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
CNERGY 4.51 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
DCL 8.55 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
DFML 41.44 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
DGKC 86.85 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
FCCL 32.28 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
FFBL 64.80 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
FFL 10.25 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
HUBC 109.57 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
HUMNL 14.68 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
KEL 5.05 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
KOSM 7.46 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
MLCF 41.38 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
NBP 60.41 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
OGDC 190.10 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
PAEL 27.83 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
PIBTL 7.83 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
PPL 150.06 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
PRL 26.88 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
PTC 16.07 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
SEARL 86.00 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
TELE 7.71 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
TOMCL 35.41 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
TPLP 8.12 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
TREET 16.41 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
TRG 53.29 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
UNITY 26.16 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
WTL 1.26 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
BR100 10,010 Increased By 126.5 (1.28%)
BR30 31,023 Increased By 422.5 (1.38%)
KSE100 94,192 Increased By 836.5 (0.9%)
KSE30 29,201 Increased By 270.2 (0.93%)

The length of children's fingers may hint at their natural abilities in math and language, a new study suggests. In a study of 75 children between the ages of 6 and 7 years old, researchers found that finger length correlated with how well the children performed on standardised tests of math and verbal skills.
Specifically, boys whose index fingers were short compared with their ring fingers tended to excel at numbers and girls with index and ring fingers of similar length tended to do better on the verbal portion of the test.
The findings are reported in the British Journal of Psychology. A number of studies have now found that "digit ratio," or the length of the index finger compared with the ring finger, is connected to cognitive performance, some personality traits, athletic prowess and the risk of certain medical conditions.
Researchers believe hormones explain the findings. Finger length is thought to be determined in the womb, with exposures to testosterone and estrogen playing a key role. Greater testosterone exposure appears to result in a shorter index finger relative to the ring finger, while estrogen encourages more equality between the two fingers.
Prenatal hormone exposure is also thought to influence brain development.
"Testosterone has been argued to promote development of the areas of the brain which are often associated with spatial and mathematical skills," study leader, Dr Mark Brosnan, explained in a statement.
Estrogen, in turn, is thought to affect brain areas involved in language ability, noted Brosnan, who heads the psychology department at the University of Bath in the UK.
Therefore, finger length may serve as a marker of fetal hormone exposures, and possibly our inborn math and language abilities. No one is saying that finger measurements should replace SAT tests, Brosnan added. But finger length does offer "an interesting insight into our innate abilities in key cognitive areas."

Copyright Reuters, 2007

Comments

Comments are closed.