Maciamo
先輩
- 17 Jul 2002
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I guess everybody has noticed the differences in skull shape and facial traits between Caucasians and Japanese (or Mongolids, shall we say) or more generally between any ethnic group. Japanese never fail to notice that their Caucasian friends have "deeper eyes" or "taller noses", for instance. They also say that Japanese have bigger heads, because it looks so, due to their flatter features and rounder head.
It didn't take me (us) long after arriving in Japan to come to measure these differences with my Japanese, Korean and Chinese friends (who were studying Japanese with me in Tokyo). Of course everyone is different, and there is a proven difference of skull size between men and women (men having larger heads). Anyway, we measured the following distances :
- head width (ear to ear)
- head length (placing a ruler against the forehead and another one at the back of the head, vertically, and measure the distance in between).
- head circumference (just above the ears and eyebrows).
- forehead height (from eyebrows to hairline)
The conclusion was that my head was bigger than their theirs for the 4 measurements, with the biggest gap for, forehead height, head length and circumference. In my case, it is very easy to see the difference in forehead height with my wife for instance. I can place my 4 fingers (thumb excluded) on mine from eyebrows to hairline, while I can only place 3 on my wife's forehead.
It also seemed to me that Japanese (East Asians) have a bigger head at the "top" (superior parietal lobe), but that it falls sharp and flat at the back (instead of having an elongated one), which give them an impression of "big head" from the back. If they do indeed have a proportionally bigger parietal lobe that would explain for their strong liking for everything sensual (food, massage, onsen, sex...). And if Caucasian have a larger frontal lobe, that would also explain why Caucasians are more logical, emotional and better at languages. Well I hope I not talking in the void here and that some people on the forum will have some knowledge of neuropsychology to discuss this.
Just in case some were interested, here is a "brief" introduction to the regions of the brain
I have found this study on the Net made by scientists at Keio University.
It didn't take me (us) long after arriving in Japan to come to measure these differences with my Japanese, Korean and Chinese friends (who were studying Japanese with me in Tokyo). Of course everyone is different, and there is a proven difference of skull size between men and women (men having larger heads). Anyway, we measured the following distances :
- head width (ear to ear)
- head length (placing a ruler against the forehead and another one at the back of the head, vertically, and measure the distance in between).
- head circumference (just above the ears and eyebrows).
- forehead height (from eyebrows to hairline)
The conclusion was that my head was bigger than their theirs for the 4 measurements, with the biggest gap for, forehead height, head length and circumference. In my case, it is very easy to see the difference in forehead height with my wife for instance. I can place my 4 fingers (thumb excluded) on mine from eyebrows to hairline, while I can only place 3 on my wife's forehead.
It also seemed to me that Japanese (East Asians) have a bigger head at the "top" (superior parietal lobe), but that it falls sharp and flat at the back (instead of having an elongated one), which give them an impression of "big head" from the back. If they do indeed have a proportionally bigger parietal lobe that would explain for their strong liking for everything sensual (food, massage, onsen, sex...). And if Caucasian have a larger frontal lobe, that would also explain why Caucasians are more logical, emotional and better at languages. Well I hope I not talking in the void here and that some people on the forum will have some knowledge of neuropsychology to discuss this.
Just in case some were interested, here is a "brief" introduction to the regions of the brain
I have found this study on the Net made by scientists at Keio University.
The head circumference growth curve for Japanese children between 0-4 years of age: comparison with Caucasian children and correlation with stature.
Tsuzaki S, Matsuo N, Saito M, Osano M.
Department of Paediatrics, School of Medicine, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan.
Controversy exists regarding possible international and interracial differences in head circumferences of children. We undertook the present study in order to see if there was a difference in head circumference between Japanese and Caucasian children. The subjects consisted of a total of 42,392 Japanese children between 0 and 4 years of age surveyed from 1940 to 1980, and these data were compared with those of American and British children. We conclude that there is a significant ethnic difference in head circumference, as large as one channel of usual percentiles, between Japanese and Caucasian children. The results indicate that smaller head circumference in Japanese children primarily reflects smaller stature of the Japanese.