Human Brains Data Limit: Information Processing Speed in Bit

Scientists made an unexpected finding regarding the speed of human thought: our brains process ideas at a rate of only 10 bits per second. This is extremely slow relative to the billion bits per second our sensory systems receive from the world. Despite having 85 billion neurons, the brain's processing capacity for thoughts is limited by its structure

An article published in the journal Neuron proved that the speed of human thought is far slower than technologies like Wi-Fi, which operates on roughly 50 million bits per second. This is a stark contrast and raises the question of how the brain filters out so much sensory information to focus on what's truly important.

Of course, a vast majority of these neurons are dedicated to the cortex, the center of high-level thinking. While single neurons can transmit more than 10 bits per second, remarkably, our collective thought process crawls along at a snail's pace. This reflects a bizarre aspect of human cognition: we can manage only a single thought at a time, unlike our sensory systems, which operate in parallel.

The researchers suggest this slow pace of human thought has evolutionary roots. Early animals with nervous systems utilized their brains primarily for navigation—finding food and evading predators. As brains evolved over time, this “one-path-at-a-time” mechanism likely carried over to more complex cognitive processes. The researchers suggest we should think of human thought as navigating a space of abstract concepts, akin to plotting a path on a mental map.

The discovery has implications for futuristic technology as well, like brain-computer interfaces. While these devices promise the potential for faster communication, the slowness of our thought processes may turn out to be a bottleneck. Unfortunately, only time will tell.

While this slow, contemplative thinking ensured the survival of our ancestors, it now affects how we communicate with the fast-developing technology—leaving us wondering how we can bridge the gap between human thought and artificial intelligence.