Key Concepts
- The human brain lacks conspicuous characteristics—such as relative or absolute size—that might account for humans’ superior intellect.
- Researchers have found some clues to humanity’s aptitude on a smaller scale, such as more neurons in our brain’s outermost layer.
- Human intelligence may be best likened to an upgrade of the cognitive capacities of nonhuman primates rather than an exceptionally advanced form of cognition.
More from this issue of Mind
August
2008 Issue- Ask the Brains Can one neuron release more than one neurotransmitter? Why is it comforting to discuss problems with others?
- Perspectives Monkey Brains Hint at Evolutionary Root of Language Processing
- Head Lines Socializing with Youth Improves the Elderly's Health, Life Span
- Buy the Digital Edition
As far as we know, no dog can compose music, no dolphin can speak in rhymes, and no parrot can solve equations with two unknowns. Only humans can perform such intellectual feats, presumably because we are smarter than all other animal species—at least by our own definition of intelligence.
Of course, intelligence must emerge from the workings of the three-pound mass of wetware packed inside our skulls. Thus, researchers have tried to identify unique features of the human brain that could account for our superior intellectual abilities. But, anatomically, the human brain is very similar to that of other primates because humans and chimpanzees share an ancestor that walked the earth less than seven million years ago.
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