how long does it take for the brain to complete a thought?

Question

I'm writing on split second thought . and need some help!

Answer 1

Depends on the thought i reckon. for example "i'm hungry" versus a thesis of "how long does it take for the brain to complete a thought?" probably have different completion times.
Did you read Blink? that's a good book about instant thoughts.
♥♥♥♥

Answer 2

It rather depends on the thought, now doesn't it? I've had a handful of thoughts that I've managed to go through in a splinter of a second; there are a few that I'm still working with after thirty years and more.

The problem here is that you haven't adequately defined what you mean to "complete a thought" if I may be so bold as to point that out.

Any given synapse takes a handful of milliseconds to fire: on the order of five to ten. The signal thus created has to travel the length of the axon, through the neuron's main body and down the next axon to the next connection; that's a speed measured in multiple meters per second. The length of time of that delay is controlled by the length travelled. Then other neuronal connections are made, with further travel, perhaps further connections, etc.

At the level of a conscious thought, anything from several tens of connections to several hundreds of connections may be involved--even for very simple thoughts like recognizing a typed letter.

What this boils down to is admitting that it's not exactly possible to give you a hard answer; there's just too many variables...

Answer 3

Read up on the link, "Frequency of Brain Waves". The average brain wave frequency is about 10-15 Hz. There's good reason to believe that neurological activity occurs at those frequencies, so that thoughts requiring neurological activity take about 1/10 to 1/15ths of a second, on average. Other brain functions, such as image recognition and pattern matching may occur far faster than this because considerable brain activity takes place inside the brain cells. But it still takes 1/10 to 1/15ths for any thought to form from such results, because communication has to occur between the brain cells for such thoughts. The speed of biological thought is limited by electrical travel along axons.

Answer 4

The brain can interpret a light signal from the eyes in 1/34 of a second. This is why motion picture frames only need 30 frames per second for something to be perceived of as smooth motion. So, if a complete thought is and exclamation point ("!") in the form of having just been zapped by lightning, it would take about 1/34 of a second from the zap to the "!"

Answer 5

It depends on the thought.I think that most split second thinking is due to your emotional state, at least in part. Like when someone make you angry, it takes some people only a moment to decide to react and if a negative reaction occurs, they always say, they should have thought more about it. but to me if you only think on it for a second or two isn't that more of an impulse and not real thought.

Answer 6

It takes like 1 nano second for a brain to think of something. Like i thought of this to write in about 1 second.

Answer 7

From the looks of some of the questions in here, too long.

Answer 8

I can play a series of chords on a piano faster than I can think the names of the chords.

Answer 9

Think "moon" it hardly took 0.0x Nano x alpha seconds.
Where alpha=infinity.

Answer 10

it depends whether it is a complex thought, like social or mathematical things, or something simple... some thoughts are so quick, you dont recognize them... like blinking, breathing, beating your heart... etc