Cognitive bottlenecks: the inherent limits of the thinking mind

The “thinking mind” is the part of the mind that seeks to make sense of the world; it analyses situations, imagines scenarios, evaluates solutions, and tells stories. It’s an inherent aspect of what makes us human. However, it’s limited by multiple cognitive bottlenecks.

Why does it matter? Because these cognitive bottlenecks limit how much information we can process at one time, how many tasks we can simultaneously focus on, and how many parameters we can consider while making a decision.

 
Intrinsic limitations of the thinking mind

The human mind has many limitations. For instance, our limited sensory capabilities mean that there are many sources of information we cannot perceive at all. Dogs can smell emotions such as fear and ​​can tell the difference between two people based on their scent alone. Bees can see infrared, which is invisible to the human eye.

For the most part, we are naturally aware of these sensory limitations. We know we are not able to perform echolocation or to see in the dark. But, somehow, we tend to overestimate our cognitive capacities — our ability to concurrently process multiple streams of information or to work on several tasks at the same time.

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Πηγή: nesslabs.com