

Hand Size--Not Sex--Determines Sense of Touch - prat
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/1218/2?rss=1

======
mtinkerhess
But sex determines hand size, so sex does determine sense of touch -- just not
in the brain like they thought it might. </nitpicking>

~~~
Retric
Sex correlates to but does not determine hand size.

~~~
tokenadult
_correlates to but does not determine_

The parent to your comment refers to "determine" in the statistical sense
(just as in the submitted article), and so this point needs to be looked at
further.

~~~
Retric
"this point needs to be looked at further." why?

 _On average, men and women with the same size fingertips perform at the same
level_ so once you know the size of someones fingertips knowing their gender
is useless (in this context). What more do you want to study?

~~~
tokenadult
Thanks for the follow-up question.

"(Finger size does not explain all individual variability, however; there are
differences between people with the same size fingers, perhaps as a result of
differences in the mechanical properties of skin or in how each person's brain
processes the information.)"

"However, other types of tactile tasks may not work the same way, he adds. For
example, passively pressing the skin against a textured object--as the study
participants did--involves different neuronal pathways than actively moving
the fingers around an object and may be controlled differently."

You are correct that the cited study found for its sample "when the scientists
looked at the results by finger size, they found that the sex difference
disappeared." Then one would want to check other forms of touch perception, as
mentioned in the submitted article, try another sample for replication,

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

and so on.

