ABSTRACT
It is common to come across statements like the following when trying to characterize what makes human cognition special: “the enlargement and species-specific elaboration of the cerebral neocortex during evolution holds the secret to the mental abilities of humans” (Rakic 2009: 724). The belief that the neocortex holds the key to “humaniqueness”, as Hauser (2009) calls it, is deeply rooted indeed. The same was true 50 years ago, which is why Lenneberg (1967) could write: “Traditionally, all intellectual functions including speech and language have been thought to be located in the cerebral cortex, and more speculations have been directed to this thin sheet of tissue than toward any other cerebral component” (p. 62).
