OBJECTIVE Digit preference bias has previously been described in a number of different clinical settings. The paper aimed to assess whether digit preference bias affects the recording of the time patients arrive and leave emergency departments. METHOD An observational study of 137 emergency departments in England and Wales was conducted. Each department was asked to submit details of the time...

The relative length of the second-to-fourth digits (2D:4D) has been linked with prenatal androgen in humans. The 2D:4D is sexually dimorphic, with lower values in males than females, and appears to correlate with diverse measures of behavior. However, the relationship between digit ratio and cognition, and spatial cognition in particular, has produced mixed results. In the present study, we hyp...

BACKGROUND We investigated the relationship between patterns of sex and hand differences in circadian wrist activity and digit ratio, a marker for prenatal androgen exposure. If the contribution of prenatal androgen exposure to sex differences in digit ratio underlies sex differences in circadian wrist activity, we predict that patterns of wrist activity will be correlated with digit ratio. M...

This study examined dual task performance in 28 younger (18-30 years) and 28 older (>60 years) adults using two sets of choice reaction time (RT) tasks paired with digit tasks. Set one paired simple choice RT with digit forward; set two paired complex choice RT with digit backward. Each task within each set had easy and hard conditions. For the simple choice RT, participants viewed single lette...

Hemispheric asymmetry is widely theorised as having a basis in prenatal androgen levels. However, these theories ignore a second round of asymmetrical changes in the brain, which occur at the same time as post-puberty surges in androgens. Hemispheric asymmetry in adults might therefore be explained in terms of the joint effects of prenatal and post-pubertal androgen levels. Evidence is emerging...

Subjects were trained to detect changes in the frequency of 21 Hz tactile stimulation applied to digits 2 + 3 + 4 (fusion group) or 2 + 4 (segregation group) of the right hand. The 21 Hz steady-state response for digit 3 was measured by 64 channel EEG on mapping trials before and after training. Discrimination improved over 3 days, confirming that subjects attended to the training stimuli. The ...

It has been hypothesised that the ratio between the length of the 2nd and 4th digits (2D:4D) is a correlate of prenatal sex steroids, and this relationship is strongest for the right hand. Furthermore, it has been suggested that 2D:4D is sexually dimorphic, the dimorphism is determined early, and 2D:4D among children is stable with growth. Here, we present the first longitudinal study of right ...

In the present study, we recorded the kinematics of grasping movements in order to measure the possible interference caused by digits printed on the visible face of the objects to grasp. The aim of this approach was to test the hypothesis that digit magnitude processing shares common mechanisms with object size estimate during grasping. In the first stages of reaching, grip aperture was found t...

We investigated the time course of neural processing of multi-digit additions in high- (HMA) and low-math anxious (LMA) individuals. Seventeen HMA and 17 LMA individuals were presented with two-digit additions and were asked to perform a verification task. Behavioral data showed that HMA individuals were slower and more error prone than their LMA peers, and that incorrect solutions were solved ...

We explored the impact of operand format (digit, word, pseudo-homophone) on single-digit addition and multiplication. Format manipulations are of theoretical interest because models of arithmetic knowledge differ with respect to predicted format effects. Latencies were shortest when operands were digits, and longest when they were pseudo-homophones. However, there was also an interaction of pro...