The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1878-05-04
How Fast Can You Think?

"Quick as thought" and "Quick as
lightning" are commonly used az syn
onymous expressions. But their differ
ence is really great. An electric i'm
pulse traverses wire as a wave of mo-
ton; nervous impulse proceeds by
development of chemical change in the
nerve. 1t runs along the nerve some
what as combustion follows a train of
gunpowder, and not much if any more
rapidly. Indeed, Helmholtz has clearly
determined the rates of nervous propa-
CATION to be less than hundred feet
second, or about a mile minute. To
use rude illustration, * a railway
could feel, the sense report of train
starting in New York would reach AL
bany but little in advance of the fastest
trains that have been run upon the Hud-
son River road. Even along courses as
short as the nerves of the human body
an appreciable time is required for the
passage of nervous impulses.
With simple apparatus, Hirsch
found that touch upon the face could
be recognized and responded to by
predetermined signal operated by the
hand in one-seventh of second. With
a sound test, acting, of course, upon the
ear, the answering signal was made in
one-sixth of a second; when the eye was
addressed, the response came in one-fifth
OF second. Since the distances trav-
eled by the nervous impulses we're nearly
the same in all these experiments, it is
evident that the greater part of the diff
ference of time noted must be charged
to the greater or smaller rapidity of the
act of recognition; the entire process
in each case being the transmission of
a sensation (touch, hearing or sight) to
the brain, its recognition, the willing of
the signal agreed upon, the transmission
of the order to the muscles of the hand
and the movement of those muscles
Thus it would appear that less time is
required for recognizing touch than a
sound, less time to hear than to see.
But what part of the fifth, sixth or sew
enth of second, as the case might be,
was consumed in the act of recognition ?
Donders was successful in answering
this question by the use of several forms
of apparatus, involving entirely differ
ent methods, yet yielding the same re-
suits He found, for instance, with the
acknowledgement" that the double
act of recognizing sound and willing
the response, required seventy-fve thou
sandths of second. Of this time, forty
thousandths of second were required
for simple recognition, thus leaving
thirty-fve thousandths for volition.
With the noematachometer he found
that the same time, forty thousandths
(or one twenty-ffth) of a second, was
required to judge which was first of two
irritants acting ON the same sense. A
slightly longer time was required to
judge the priority of signals acting on
different senses, as sound and light.
1t also took longer to recognize letter
by seeing its form than by hearing it's
sound.
This in man of middle age. Young
people thought quicker, but the differ
ence was not great. In all the expert
ments the time required for a simple
thought was never less than fortieth of
a second. In other words the mind can
perform not more than twenty-four hun
dred simple acts minute, fifteen hun
dred minute being the rate for per-
sons of middle age.
From these figures it will be seen how
absurd are many popular notions in re-
gard to the feetness of thought, how ex-
aggerated are the terrors of remorseful
memory that moralists have invented
for the moment of dying. And we may
reasonably discount !" also the stories
told by men saved from drowning, cut
down before death by hanging, or res
cued from sudden and deadly peril from
other causes. No doubt man may
think of great multitude of expert
ences, good or bad, in few minutes;
but that the thoughts and emotions of
long life may surge through the mind
during the seconds of asphyxiation are
manifestly impossible.
Admit that the speed of mental &C
ton is abnormally rapid at such times,
say twenty-five hundred simple cogita
tions minute, or 1000 an hour. If
man were an hour in drowning, in
stead of few minutes, and all the time
be given mental review of his life, he
would, if forty years old, have time to
give ten thoughts of the simplest char
acter to each day that be had lived. In
other words memory would have time to
review the experiences of at most the
hundredth part of one second out of
each days waking thousands.