Walking upright helped humans develop complex brain?

Learning to stand on two legs may have helped humans develop a more complex brain than other primates, a new study has found.
"Although lots of animals are smart, humans are even smarter. How and why do we think and act so differently from other species?" researchers said.
A young boy's efforts while learning to walk have suggested a new explanation, in a journal paper jointly authored by his father and grandfather, both academics at the University of Sydney.
The son-and-father team of Mac and Rick Shine suggests that the big difference between humans and other species may lie in how we use our brains for routine tasks.

They advance the idea that the key to exploiting the awesome processing power of our brain's most distinctive feature - the cortex - may have been to liberate it from the drudgery of controlling routine activities.
Tyler Shine, now two years old, was first learning to walk, his doting father and grandfather noticed that every step took Tyler's full attention.

But before too long, walking became routine, and Tyler was able to start noticing other things around him. He was better at maintaining his balance, which freed up his attention to focus on more interesting tasks, like trying to get into mischief.

The researchers suggest that he did so by transferring the control of his balance to 'lower' parts of the brain, freeing up the powerful cortex to focus on unpredictable challenges, such as a bumpy floor covered in stray toys.
"Any complicated task - like driving a car or playing a musical instrument - starts out consuming all our attention, but eventually becomes routine," Mac said.
"Studies of brain function suggest that we shift the control of these routine tasks down to 'lower' areas of the brain, such as the basal ganglia and the cerebellum.
"So, humans are smart because we have automated the routine tasks; and thus, can devote our most potent mental faculties to deal with new, unpredictable challenges," said Mac.

"What event in the early history of humans made us change the way we use our brains?" researchers asked.
Watching Tyler learn to walk suggested that it was the evolutionary shift from walking on all fours, to walking on two legs.
"Suddenly our brains were overwhelmed with the complicated challenge of keeping our balance - and the best kind of brain to have, was one that didn't waste its most powerful functions on controlling routine tasks," said Mac.
The researchers believe those first pre-humans who began to stand upright faced a new evolutionary pressure not just on their bodies, but on their brains as well.

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience.