ABSTRACT
External ear is a significant feature for human’s face identification, its size, shape and spatial location on human face are vital form esthetic point of view, it also play vital role in forensic investigation and it aimed at investigating the range of variation seen in external ear structure of Ibibio population. Standardized measurement of the normal pinna were measured in 400 males and females of Ibibio in AkwaIbom State Nigeria, using a vernier caliper with resolution of 0.01mm between the age of 13-15 years .The parameters used in these study were; ear length, ear width and lobular-width for each respondent right and left ear. The subject studies were selected to meet inclusion criteria and were grouped according to age and sex. The data were analyzed using mean, standard deviation (SD) and variance. The mean length of male and female left ear aged 15 was 40.515mm and 47.72mm and that of the same with the left ear of males which was measured to be 22.57mm in females. The main left ear of both male and females 14 years shows no statistical difference (p<0.05), the ear width of males was higher than the females and varies in an average of 0.04cm. The mean ear lobe of females 14 years was 19.07mm and 18.02mm in males. The right ear of 14 years shows that females have higher dimensions in length than the males, and lobes respectively. The means for lengths of right and left ear females were 42.21mm and 41.12mm, the means for ear width of right and left females were 23.34mm and 23.34mm and 23.09mm. The mean lobe for left ear females were 19.11mm and 19.44 right. And the means for lengths right and left males were 24.04mm and 24.11mm. The means lobe for left ear male were measured to be 19.07mm and 22.15mm right. Comparisons were performed by independent t-test and paired sample t-test. The overall data shows existence of sexual dimorphism on ear dimension among Ibibio population. Therefore, these findings suggest that the normal anthropometric study will have implications in the cosmetic surgeries, correction of malformations, designing of headphones, earphones and hearing aids.
