A Study on Information Processing by Human Brain

Abstract

Background: Information gathering and processing by human brain has always perplexed the scientificworld. Few evidenced it to be in an analog form while a second school of thought showed it to be digital.There were also a third group who believed it was neither analog nor digital but followed a special signalprocessing paradigm[1]. A small attempt has been made in this study to assess the mode of informationgrasping by human brain.Materials and Method: Two hundred and fifty undergraduate students studying first year of MBBS(Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery) at Osmania Medical College, Hyderabad were selected forthe study after taking consent from institutional ethics committee. An article consisting of 110 words writtenin jumbled alphabets was selected for the study. As the average reading speed of human beings is 200 to 250words per minute, the students were instructed to read the article within half a minute and to jot down thewords not understood by them on a white sheet. At the end white sheets of all 250 students were collected.Conclusions:1. The study concludes that on a time scale human brain tries to grasp maximum information in minimumtime possible, i.e. it takes and processes the information in an analog form2. Later if needed only it digitalises the information and learns the details.3. On a temporal framework grasping the information in an analog form gives advantage to the biologicalsystem