POSITIVE CORRELATIONS BETWEEN BRAIN SIZE AND INTELLIGENCE - FURTHER EVIDENCE FROM INDIA

Two hundred 9-year old Indian children were given the Progressive Matr ices, a vocabulary test, and 4 simple music tests. Head circumference, height and weight were also measured. There were generally positive c orrelations between the cognitive measures and head circumference, but with age partialled out only the correlation with the Progressive Mat rices remained statistically significant. The results indicate that a large brain confers an advantage for the performance of the complex pr oblem solving tasks of the Progressive Matrices, but less of an advant age for the simple tasks of the music tests. Considered in evolutionar y terms, the results suggest that the hominids evolved large brains in order to solve complex tasks.