Slow Thinking and the Invisible Gorilla

The above image was made with stable diffusion using the prompt 'a gorilla playing basketball.'

I'm a slow thinker, particularly when it comes to solving complex problems. I think slow and talk slow and stop processing what I'm hearing when other people say too many things too quickly. I've always assumed that those with faster response times were more intelligent, but a new study in Nature Communications challenges this assumption. Here's a quote from a good article about it:

Participants with higher intelligence were quicker only when the test questions were simple. However, when faced with more challenging tasks that required greater problem-solving, participants with higher intelligence actually took more time to arrive at correct solutions. "The most surprising insight: since intelligence tests exist (roughly 1890) there was always the assumption that smarter people are smarter because they have faster brains. Turns out: nope!" [lead author Michael] Schirner remarked. Previous research suggested that individuals with higher intelligence tend to have faster reaction times. However, this study’s findings challenged that notion by showing that reaction time is not always indicative of intelligence. The researchers proposed a trade-off between decision-making speed and accuracy, which aligns with theories from fields like economy and psychology on fast and slow thinking.

Along with thinking slowly, I naturally seem to have limited cognitive bandwidth. And exceeding the natural limits of my bandwidth can trigger a cluster headache attack, especially in periods of high risk. Many people seem to be able to converse with multiple others simultaneously, but not me. I can listen to exactly one person at a time, and it totally stresses me out to try listening to more voices than that.

Technically, listening to just one person uses about half of the brain's available bandwidth. Since there's always some baseline cognitive load beyond this, listening to two or more speakers simultaneously is probably impossible for most other people too. They might think they're listening, when really there's something else going on.

Lessons from the Invisible Gorilla

A well known Harvard Study took participants who were closely paying attention to a basketball game and introduced a woman in a gorilla suit into the scene. Those watching this game were counting the number of times a player passed a ball, which required significant cognitive resources. Right in the middle of things, the gorilla appeared and pounded on her chest for several seconds before exiting the game.

About half of the spectators noted the unexpected appearance. But the other half completely missed the spectacle. The gorilla couldn't have been more obvious, yet they couldn't see her. Their minds were otherwise engaged.

As fantastical as this gorilla blindness seems, the underlying phenomenon is evident throughout society. When cognitive resources are taxed, we're less attentive, sometimes to a surprising degree. Advertisers take advantage of this to undermine critical thinking. Muggers target the visibly distracted over the more present. Police interrogators intentionally burn the cognitive resources of interviewees, which makes it harder for interviewees to lie because lies literally require less mental energy than truths.

In part because of the connection with my headache disorder, my own life is organized in such a way as to minimize excess cognitive loading. I'm also the sort of person who always needs to be considering complex matters with some corner of my mind or I lose interest in absolutely everything. Plus, all of my work is brain work, so my cognitive resources are generally mostly engaged. The trick is to shy away from the unnecessary use of these resources.

Read my novels:

• Small Gods of Time Travel is available as a web book on IPFS and as a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt.
• The Paradise Anomaly is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
• Psychic Avalanche is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
• One Man Embassy is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
• Flying Saucer Shenanigans is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
• Rainbow Lullaby is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
• The Ostermann Method is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
• Blue Dragon Mississippi is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.

See my NFTs:

• Small Gods of Time Travel is a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt that goes with my book by the same name.
• History and the Machine is a 20 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on my series of oil paintings of interesting people from history.
• Artifacts of Mind Control is a 15 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on declassified CIA documents from the MKULTRA program.