Our brains are not as fast as we might think; Study reveals speed of human thought

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have quantified the speed at which the human brain processes information, revealing that we may not be as smart as we might think. The study opened new avenues of exploration for neuroscience.

The study found that the speed of human thought is only 10 bits per second, much lower than we would like to imagine. Our brain processes thoughts one at a time, making them a slow, cluttered queue.

This new information contrasts with the way the peripheral nervous system works, processing gigabits of sensory data in a second, raising many questions for scientists.

The research led by neurobiologist Jieyu Zheng was carried out in the laboratory of Markus Meister and published in the journal Neuron on December 17.

“This is an extremely low number,” Meister says. “At any given moment, we extract just 10 bits from the trillion our senses absorb and use those 10 to perceive the world around us and make decisions. This raises a paradox: what does the brain do to filter all this information?

Zheng and Meister pointed out in their published paper that despite the richness of our minds, photographic memory, and unconscious processes, the brain actually operates at a slow pace, which rarely exceeds 10 bits per second.

According to researchers, the brain processes just under 12 bits per second when solving a Rubik’s cube blindfolded and about 10 bits when playing a strategy video game.

“Current understanding is no match for the enormous processing resources available, and we have seen no viable proposals for what would create a neuronal bottleneck that would force single-stranded operation,” the authors write.

With over 85 billion neurons in the brain forming billions of connections, allowing us to feel and think, it’s unclear why each of them can’t collectively process at a faster speed.

“Our ancestors chose an ecological niche where the world was slow enough to allow survival,” write Zheng and Meister. “In fact, 10 bits per second is only necessary in the worst situations, and most of the time our environment evolves at a much slower rate.”

Scientists have suggested developing an interface that can connect the brain and computers so that humans can communicate faster than the normal pace of speaking or typing. The new study showed that our brains can only communicate at the same speed of 10 bits per second.

(With contribution from agencies)