The information throughput of human behaviour is about 10 bits/s.

Some portions of our brain, such as the peripheral sensory regions, clearly process information much faster, on the order of gigabits/s. This defines a paradox, which Jieyu Zheng and Markus Meister explore in a paper¹ published in Neuron this month.

What about photographic memory? What about the rich detail everywhere in my visual scene? What about unconscious processing? Failing at debunking the paradox, one is forced to deal with the recognition that human perception, action, and cognition proceed at a glacially slow pace. How can humans get away with just 10 bits/s?

The tautological answer here is that cognition at such a low rate is sufficient for survival. More precisely, our ancestors have chosen an ecological niche where the world is slow enough to make survival possible.

In other ecological niches, for example, those of snails and worms, the world is much slower still (…) Occasionally, niches intersect with disastrous consequences, as when a snail crosses the highway. One may ask whether there are animals operating at much higher information rates. Candidates might be flying insects that perform aerobatics in turbulent air flow, or birds that navigate through tree clutter at high speeds.

Remarkably there has been very little research in this area.

The theme is well worth a Milan Kundera’s deep (and slow) reflection.

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(1) Zheng, Jieyu, y Markus Meister. «The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?» Neuron, 17 de diciembre de 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2024.11.008.

Featured Image: NightCafe