According to Mountcastle, the neocortex does not do different things; each neocortical column does exactly the same thing. The only difference between regions of neocortex is the input they receive and where they send their output; the actual computations of the neocortex itself are identical. The only difference between, for example, the visual cortex and the auditory cortex is that the visual cortex gets input from the retina, and the auditory cortex gets input from the ear.
