Question

What is meant by cranial capacity?

Answer 1

Hint: Cranial capacity is an estimation of the total volume of the interior of the cranium in the head. For the vertebrates, having both the cranium and brain, the cranial capacity is measured. The commonly used unit for the representation of the cranial capacity is a cubic centimeter or cc. The human cranial capacity ranges from 1000 to 1500 cubic centimeters. The sperm whale has the highest cranial capacity.

Complete answer:
Cranial capacity is the cubic content of the neurocranium, which is obtained by calculating the cubage of small seeds or beads needed to fill the cranium. The other names for the interior of the cranium are braincase, skull, and brainpan. The volume of the cranium serves a rough indicator of the size of the brain. Due to the thickness of the membranes, which surround the brain, the brain volume is lesser than the cranial capacity.
Cranial capacity also represents the potential intelligence of an organism. The cranial capacity is roughly measured by filling the cranial cavity with glass beads and measuring their volume. CT scan imaging is used for the measurement of cranial capacity.
Making an endocranial cast and measuring the amount of water the cast displaces is one of the accurate ways for the determination of cranial capacity. Most of the studies involve the usage of the dry skull using linear dimensions, radiological methods, and packing methods. Cranial capacity is used to compare the size of the brain of the specimen to the expected brain size of animals with roughly the same weight.

Note:
The average size of the brain has been shrinking over the past 28000 years. In males, the cranial capacity has been decreased from 1550 to 1440 cubic centimeters. In females, the cranial capacity has been decreased from 1500 to 1240 cubic centimeters.Larger cranial capacities or brains don’t necessarily make a smarter organism. The correlation value between the cranial capacity and intelligence is between 0.3 and 0.4 out of 10.