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How fast do humans think ? According to a new study , it ’s slower than you might expect .
The peripheralnervous organization — the internet of nervousness that birth info between the brain and the body — takes in environmental data at over a billion bits per second , a speed comparable to a lightning - fast internet connection . But people think and process that information at just 10 routine per sec , researchers report in the bailiwick .
The speed limit of human thought is slower than one might expect.
This vast gulf hints at major unexplored inquiry inneuroscienceand human cognition .
" That number is preposterously small compare with any entropy charge per unit we encounter in daily life , " the researchers indite in the study , print Dec. 17 in the journalNeuron . " For example , we get anxious when the upper of the home WiFi web drop below 100 Mb per s because that might compromise our use of Netflix shows . Meanwhile , even if we stay alert during the show , our brain will never draw out more than 10 bits per minute of that jumbo bitstream . "
Study co - authorsJieyu ZhengandMarkus Meisterof Caltech determined this amphetamine limit point by calculating the routine of bits required to perform a task , such as solving a Rubik ’s Cube or memorize the gild of a pack of cards of cards , and dividing it by the time it call for to execute each task . For disc - harbour computer storage expert who can land up those task in sec , the charge per unit at which they work on information was roughly 10 mo per secondly .
The study raises several doubt about how and whyhuman brainsfilter out all of the extra information take aim in by the queasy system . A single neuron can fire tight enough to convey data at 10 bits per secondly .
" That one individual nerve cell can do as well as a imp , " Zheng secernate Live Science . " You just need one neuron to encode a yes or no determination , and that is enough for you to output that behaviour . So why do we need billions of nerve cell to do this while we still output at 10 bits per secondly ? "
The sketch also propose an explanation for why humans ca n’t follow multiple trains of thought at once , like listening to several cooccurring conversation at a party . Evolutionary history may be responsible for this undivided - given focus , the researchers advise . The first skittish arrangement in early animals were only responsible for guiding an being toward food or away from peril , so they needed to make only one decision at a time : which direction to move . More abstract thought follows similar " paths " and may have inherit the restraint of processing just one path at a clip , the study authors suggested .
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The team propose that the brain operates in two simultaneous musical mode : an " out brain " that takes in millions of bits of information and an " inner psyche " that concenter on one small portion of that datum at a time . To determine how the out and inner brain intercommunicate with each other , researchers will have to study soul ' brains while they do complex tasks , such as driving a car , that require people to oft tilt their attending to unlike aspects of the task , Zheng said .
" How does [ the inner brain ] do job controller ? " Zheng say . " How does it select which 10 bits per secondly we are paying attending to ? We are really hoping that mass can go deeper into this . "
