The study of variations in the size, shape, and proportion of the cranium. Phrenology was a pseudoscience of the 18th and 19th centuries, based on the belief that a person's character could be learned by looking with care at the shape of the person's head and noting each and every bump and depression in the skull. The individual mental fa [..]

1815, literally "mental science," from phreno- + -logy "study of." Applied to the theory of mental faculties originated by Gall and Spurzheim that led to the 1840s mania for readin [..]

The study of the bumps on the outside of the skull in order to determine a person's character. It was based on the mistaken theory that the skull becomes modified according to the size of differe [..]

Phrenology was developed as a techique based on the belief that the personality and mental attributes of a subject can be deduced from the study of the shape of the skull. Founded in Germany and commo [..]

noun. a theory of personality developed in the 18th and 19th centuries by an Austrian philosopher and anatomist named Johann Kaspar Spurzheim and a German doctor named Franz Josef Gall . It postulated [..]

At one point in time, psychologists believed that behavioral characteristics of humans could be described by measuring the bumps on their heads. The technique was established by Francis Gall in the ea [..]

The belief that bumps on the skull reflect enlargements of brain regions responsible for certain behavioral faculties. See Figure 1.12.

(n) a now abandoned study of the shape of skull as indicative of the strengths of different faculties

The study of the conformation of the Skull as indicative of mental Faculties and traits of Character, especially according to the hypothesis of F. J. Gall (1758-1828). (Webster 3d ed)

The study of the conformation of the skull as indicative of mental faculties and traits of character, especially according to the hypothesis of F. J. Gall (1758-1828). (Webster 3d ed)