A new study has revealed that the speed of human thought is 10 bits per second. To put into perspective how slow that is, the average Wi-Fi connection can process 50 million bits per second.
The study was led by Jieyu Zheng, a graduate student at Caltech.
The researchers also discovered the body’s sensory systems gather data about the environment at a rate of one billion bits per second.
The study’s authors said the fact that our sensory systems absorb information at a rate 100 million times faster than our brains process thought raises several questions.
For instance, there are 85 billion neurons in the brain. Each neuron is more than capable of processing information far faster than 10 bits per second. But scientists are wondering why neurons don’t process faster, why people have powerful neurons but don’t use them and why humans can only think about one thing at a time.
Scientists said they have a few ideas.
Researchers found that the brain seems to operate in two modes. The outer brain absorbs high-dimensional sensory information and motor signals while the inner brain processes information needed to control behavior, which is significantly less data than is absorbed by all the senses.
Another factor is that 10 bits is really all humans need to make the decisions necessary to survive. In fact, they said 10 bits per second is only for “worst case situations” the rest of the time, humans don’t even use that much.
The team suggests more research needs to be done to discover how the “one thought at a time” operating procedure is woven into the architecture of the human brain.
The research also had an interesting look into the future. There are multiple companies trying to develop neural interfaces that would create a direct link between a brain and a computer.
Perhaps the most well-known is Neuralink by Elon Musk. The company is trying to help people with disabilities like quadriplegia, blindness or loss of speech regain autonomy.
The researchers said, based on their findings, a brain would communicate with the neural interface at the rate of 10 bits per second.