Early on when Information Theory was emerging, there were attempts to measure the bandwidth of consciousness. They reckoned about 18 bits per second or less, wh

Early on when Information Theory was emerging, there were attempts to measure the bandwidth of consciousness. They reckoned about 18 bits per second or less, which sounds very low. Tor Norretranders book, The User Illusion, mentions some of the research: W R Garner and Harold W Lake "The Amount of Information in Absolute Judgements" - Psychological Review 58 (1951) - they attempted to measure people's ability to distinguish stimuli (such as light and sound) in bits. Result: 2.2 to 3.2 bits per second. W E Hick "On the Rate of Gain of Information" - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 4 (1952) - this experiment measured how much information a person could pass on if they acted as a link in a communication channel. That is, faced with a series of flashing lights, subjects had to press the right keys. Result: 5.5 bits per second. Henry Quastler "Studies of Human Channel Capacity" - Information Theory, Proceedings of the Third London Symposium (1956). Measured how many bits of information are expressed by a pianist while pressing keys on a piano. Result: 25 bits per second. J R Pierce "Symbols, Signals and Noise" (Harper 1961) - used experiments involving letters and symbols. Result: 44 bits per second. Discussion of the research, Tor Norretranders book, and what the research may have missed here: http://memebake.blogspot.com/2008/08/straw-dogs-and-bandwidth-of.html http://memebake.blogspot.com/2008/08/straw-dogs-and-bandwidt...