It’s a total Crockus

When presenter Dan Hodgins told preschool teachers that boys’ brains are wired to see the big picture and girls’ brains to see details, teacher Heidi W. was dubious. She wondered especially about the claim that girls have a bigger “crockus.” She e-mailed Language Log’s Mark Liberman, who critiqued the theory of brain-sex differences and set out to discover: What’s a crockus?

Hodgins, early childhood education director at Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan, replied to Liberman’s e-mail query:

The Crockus was actually just recently named by Dr. Alfred Crockus. It is the detailed section of the brain, a part of the frontal lope (sic). It is the detailed section of the brain. You are right, it is four times larger in females then males from birth. This part of the brain supports the Corpus Callosum (the part of the brain that connects the right and left hemisphere. The larger the crockus the more details are percieved (sic) by the two sides of the brain.

But Dr. Alfred Crockus doesn’t appear to exist online. Neither does Boston Medical University Hospital, where Hodgins says he works, but there is a Boston University Hospital run by BU’s School of Medicine. Crockus is not on the faculty. Several researchers cited by Hodgins also remain elusive, writes Liberman.

For more on the elusive Dr. C and the history of Crosley Shelvador of MIT, go here and here.

Update: At I Speak of Dreams, Liz reports on her attempts to confirm Hodgins’ alleged PhD and “national awards.”