Human Brains Are Not As Fast As We Previously Thought, Study Reveals

For the first time, scientists have quantified how quickly the human brain is able to process any information and the results might not be as flattering as we might have previously believed. According to the researchers, humans process information at a speed of just 10 bits per second despite receiving billions of bits of information that our senses, including the eyes, ears, skin, and nose gather cumulatively.

Notably, a bit is the basic unit of information in computing 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 Rubik's cube, humans can only think at a speed of 10 bits per second, which they called "extremely slow".

Scientists at the California Institute of Technology set out to discover the reason for this paradox and published their findings in the journal Neuron last week.

"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?" said neurobiologist Markus Meister who was involved in the study.

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What's the reason?

Although there is no clear answer, the researchers posited that our slow brain processing might be down to necessity, or rather, the lack of it.

"Our ancestors have chosen an ecological niche where the world is slow enough to make survival possible," the study noted. "In fact, the 10 bits per second are needed only in worst-case situations, and most of the time our environment changes at a much more leisurely pace."

Based on the research, the scientists said there was a need for more research into how our brain only focuses on one train of thought at a time, instead of capitalising on the sea of information it receives every passing second.

"The current understanding is not commensurate with the enormous processing resources available, and we have seen no viable proposal for what would create a neural bottleneck that forces single-strand operation," the researchers added.

Further exploration is needed as there are over 85 billion neurons with one-third of these dedicated to high-level thinking and located in the cortex.