On average, how much brain capacity do we use compared to the Homo erectus?
by 
saviorknights
ANSWERS: 1
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All living organisms use as much brain capacity as they have; brains are metabolically expensive organs, and we only support that kind of expense if there is a benefit. I'm guessing that this question stems from the popular myth that we "only use 10% of our brain's capacity" -- see http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/brain-myth for further debunking of that. In terms of actual brain capacity -- humans generally have brains in the range of 1250 - 1350 cubic centimeters (cc). Homo erectus had a widely variable brain size, ranging from 800 - 1300 cc. However, the frontal and prefrontal cortices, where we do most of our forward planning and language processing, were considerably underdeveloped in Homo erectus compared to modern humans.
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