“Study Unveils: Human Brain’s Processing Speed Lags Behind the Lightning-Fast Internet”

How often have you experienced impatience when the internet speed declines? Picture yourself in a group video call with friends during the festive season and all of a sudden your screen freezes. You would undoubtedly go insane! You might blame the router, or the internet provider for the sluggish connection. Streaming a high-definition video requires approximately 25 million bps, while in an American household, the download velocity averages about 262 million bps. However, most of us do not perceive that speed as sufficient. But have you ever pondered how rapid your brain operates? Well, not adequately fast!
A recent research indicates that the human brain handles information at a notably slow rate. Envision 10 bps. Precisely. The latest study, ‘The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?’, published in the journal Neuron, uncovers that the human brain processes thoughts quite slowly.

(Pic courtesy: iStock)

Conducted by Jieyu Zheng, a graduate student at Caltech, the study employed methods from the domain of information theory to analyze an extensive amount of scientific literature regarding human behaviors, such as reading, playing video games, and solving Rubik’s Cubes. They discovered that humans operate at a speed of 10 bits per second.
Despite the existence of 85 billion neurons within the brain, each capable of processing information faster than 10 bits per second, the overall rate does not reflect that capability. Researchers are curious about the underlying reasons.
They identified that the brain functions in two modes. The outer brain takes in high-dimensional sensory input and motor signals, while the inner brain manages the data necessary for behavioral control, which is significantly less compared to the influx from all senses.
“This is an extremely low number. Every moment, we are extracting just 10 bits from the trillion that our senses are taking in and using those 10 to perceive the world around us and make decisions. This raises a paradox: What is the brain doing to filter all of this information?” co-author Markus Meister of CalTech remarked in a statement.

The findings suggest that primitive creatures possessing a nervous system utilized their brains mainly for navigation, aiming primarily to approach food and evade predators. As human brains developed from these origins, it may shed light on why we can only pursue one ‘path’ of thought at any given time. “Human thinking can be viewed as a form of navigation through a space of abstract concepts,” the researchers stated.

“Our ancestors selected an ecological niche where the pace of the world allowed for survival. In truth, the 10 bits per second are only essential in dire situations, and typically, our environment alters at a considerably more relaxed tempo,” the authors concluded.