For the first time, scientists have quantified how quickly the human brain is able to process any information, and the results may not be as flattering as we previously thought. According to the researchers, humans process information at a rate of just 10 bits per second, despite receiving billions of pieces of information that our senses, including the eyes, ears, skin and nose, cumulatively collect.
In particular, a bit is the basic unit of information in computers with a typical Wi-Fi connection processing about 50 million bits per second. Scientists found that during activities such as reading, writing, playing video games and solving the Rubik’s cube, people can only think at a speed of 10 bits per second, which they called “extremely slow.”
Scientists from the California Institute of Technology set out to find the reason for this paradox and published their findings in the journal Neuron last week.
“This is an extremely low number. At any given moment, we extract just 10 bits from the trillion that our senses take in and use those 10 to perceive the world around us and make decisions. This raises a paradox: what is the brain doing? to filter all this information?” said neurobiologist Markus Meister who was involved in the research.
Also read | Scientists reveal how love lights up different parts of the human brain
What’s the reason?
While there is no clear answer, the researchers suggested that our slow brain processing could be due to necessity, or more accurately, the lack thereof.
“Our ancestors chose an ecological niche where the world was slow enough to allow survival,” the study said. “In fact, the 10 bits per second are only needed in the worst situations, and most of the time our environment changes at a much more leisurely pace.”
Based on the research, the scientists said there is a need for more research into how our brains focus on only one train of thought at a time, rather than capitalizing on the sea of information it receives every second.
“Current understanding is disproportionate to the vast processing resources available, and we have not seen a feasible proposal for what would create a neural bottleneck that forces single-stranded action,” the researchers added.
Further research is needed because there are more than 85 billion neurons, a third of which are dedicated to high-level thinking and are located in the cortex.