The human brain processes information more slowly than the senses

According to a recent study published by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), humans process thoughts at just 10 bits per second. Meanwhile, our senses can collect data at a rate of billions of bits per second. This explains why we often feel overwhelmed by what is going on around us.

Caltech’s research paper titled ‘The Insufferable Slowness of Existence: Why Do We Live at 10 Bits/Second? think at slow speed and propose a new study to understand this bottleneck once it has been quantified.

Professor Markus Meister and student Jieyu Zheng from Caltech wrote this paper, highlighting the difference between the data processing capabilities of the outer and inner brain. They asked why the inner brain, where we think about the vast stream of data we experience, works so slowly despite containing about a third of the brain’s 85 billion neurons.

The researchers applied an information theory-based approach to measuring the speed of human thinking. In addition to conducting their own experiments, they evaluated human performance in tasks such as reading and writing, playing video games, and solving Rubik’s cubes to reach conclusions about the processing speed of 10 bits per second.

Professor Meister admitted: “This is an extremely low number. Every moment, we only extract 10 bits from the trillions of bits that our senses receive and use them to perceive the world around us.” around, while also making decisions. This causes a paradox: What is the brain doing to filter all this information?”

The paper also raises questions related to technologies such as brain-computer interfaces (BCI). Researchers wonder whether neural interfaces will be limited to an effective 10 bits per second. Maybe this research will lead to faster ways to connect processes between inside and outside the brain, or make better use of those billions of neurons.