characteristics of the brain.
Scientists have long understood that the brain is modular, with different regions supporting specific abilities, Barbey said.
"For example, brain regions within the occipital lobe at the back of the brain are known to processes visual information," he said. But interpreting what one sees requires the integration of information from other brain modules.
"To identify an object, we also must classify it. That doesn't depend only on vision. It also requires conceptual knowledge and other aspects of information processing, which are supported by other brain regions," he said. "And as the number of modules increases, the type of information represented in the brain becomes increasingly abstract and general."
Scientists have struggled to understand how the brain organizes itself and have tried to identify a structure or region that performs that function.
"The prefrontal cortex, a structure at the front of the brain, for example, has expanded dramatically over the course of human evolution," Barbey said. Because this brain region is known to support several higher-order functions such as planning and organizing one's behavior, scientists have suggested that the prefrontal cortex drives general intelligence.
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