This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Caltech article: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/thinking-slowly-the-paradoxical-slowness-of-human-behavior
The full text of the paper costs $35 to read once.
"Look, I made a really exciting controversial discovery! It's really emotional and intriguing! You're missing out! Only smart rich people can read it! Put your money in the basket please :)" Our education system is dead the the populace is too stupid to care.
Here's a link to Caltech's press release: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/thinking-slowly-the-paradoxical-slowness-of-human-behavior
Here's a link to the actual paper (paywall): https://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(24)00808-0
Here's a link to a preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.10234
Thank you! I'll add these to the body.
Edit: Never mind, it doesn't seem to want to let me save. Oh well.
Edit 2: Weird, it did when I tried it again, so thanks!
Some parts of the paper are available here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0896627324008080?via=ihub
It doesn't look like these "bits" are binary, but "pieces of information" (which I find a bit misleading):
“Quick, think of a thing… Now I’ll guess that thing by asking you yes/no questions.” The game “Twenty Questions” has been popular for centuries as a thinking challenge. If the questions are properly designed, each will reveal 1 bit of information about the mystery thing. If the guesser wins routinely, this suggests that the thinker can access about million possible items in the few seconds allotted. Therefore, the speed of thinking—with no constraints imposed—corresponds to 20 bits of information over a few seconds: a rate of 10 bits/s or less.
The authors do draw a distinction between the sensory processing and cognition/decision-making, at least:
To reiterate: human behaviors, including motor function, perception, and cognition, operate at a speed limit of 10 bit/s. At the same time, single neurons can transmit information at that same rate or faster. Furthermore, some portions of our brain, such as the peripheral sensory regions, clearly process information dramatically faster.
But our brains are not digital, so they cannot be measured in binary bits.
There is no other definition of bit that is valid in a scientific context. Bit literally means "binary digit".
Information theory, using bits, is applied to the workings of the brain all the time.
Indeed not. So using language specific to binary systems - e.g. bits per second - is not appropriate in this context.
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."
Bruh some tech pro is going to read this and interpret this in a terrible fashion but then again humans already change our environment.
what
So the article is going with humans only think as fast because evolution determines this speed was sufficient. So if i was highly misguided individual wanting to up the average human speed we need to create an environment where there is a need to process data faster. Sounds like a horror cyber punk but in reality human progress is super fast now relative to 10k years ago. So the change may happen naturally.
Oh, you have the full text of the paper?? Please share it! We'd like to read it for ourselves.
i can agree at some extent why it could be at 10bits/sec.
the brain is known to do some shortcuts when parsing/speed reading but slows down when we try to extract details from written works. it is also more tiring to scrutinize details than to just read articles.
i was surprised that they got the speed measured.
