We've all heard this ridiculous statement. Sometimes it is 30% sometimes it is 15%--the number varies. The premise, however, is the same. We only use a very small capacity of our brain. This statement has been circulating for a while now. Every time it has something different to offer. Sometimes they say that Einstein only used about 50% of the capacity of his brain, so just imagine how much you use! It seems obvious that this will surprise a lot of people and gasp in awe of the amazing potential of the human brain. --If we only used our brains to their full capacities...
People that repeat this statement are obviously not cognizant of the way the human brain works. But if they were able to question twice what they hear on the internet, they'd be able to figure out that it is incorrect.
The first question that any skeptic should ask his or herself is:
-- How do they know what 100% capacity really is?
In order to say that you only use 30% or 15% or whatever percentage of your brain, you first need to know the full capacity of the brain. If Einstein, who is one of the smartest people we've ever had, is not even close, how do we know what 100% is? What method was used to reach this number, and also, how are you measuring these cognition skills? IQ numbers seem to be the obvious answer, but it is not the case. The fact of the matter is that IQ tests are also capped, and there is a maximum score you can get. Furthermore, plenty of people have scored the highest score possible on tests like the Weschler IQ test. Apparently, even scoring the top score possible on IQ tests would leave you somehow using only a small percentage of it.
-- What kind of intelligence are we referring to?
Through most of the twentieth century, the term "intelligence" referred to two things: numerical abilities, and verbal abilities. Even to this day, people think of intelligence in these terms. Gardner proposed the theory of multiple intelligence. This theory makes absolute sense to me. I am quite gifted when it comes to numbers and verbal skills, but you should see me dancing or trying to play golf. There's people who can compose the most amazing songs, and yet have a really hard time doing a two digit subtraction. If we are going to compare the best mathematicians, linguists and writers, dancers, artists, etc to our own petty skills, we can say that not only we don't use 100%, but not even close to first tenth.
-- Is there a difference between capacity and potential?
The simple answer is yes. There is an amount of data that we can currently hold, and there is a potential amount of data we could hold. When it comes to the abilities of the brain, there are so many things we could be talking about that it is really hard to say what our capacity really is. Each of us has a different mnemonic capacity (ie ability to retain in memory). There are people that have amazing mnemonic skills, and people who can barely remember their own birthday. Most researchers suggest that the potential of your brain, depends on its ability to create new connections between the neurons--and not according to the amount the neurons we have, or the size of the brain itself. If this was the case, we could make the statement that men have more mental capacity, simply because the brain of a male is on average bigger than that of a woman. We cannot really study the potential of the brain, because we don't know exactly what the potential is. People can exercise a certain ability and become good at it, and there are people who seem to have the ability coded into their genes. In any case, the term "we don't even use 10% of the potential our brains have", sounds less irrational than "we don't even use 10% of the capacity our brains have". Have it your way, they're both utterly wrong.
-- Limits to our capacity
Even though the brain is a fascinating organ, and neuroscientists are left in awe every time there is a new discovery--the brain still has limits to what it can do. According to the latest understanding of cognitive psychology, the brain has a set of buffers and filters that help obtain the important information, and to discard the information that is not useful. The brain usually messes up and we end up remembering insignificant details, and forgetting the main point. Research suggests that these filters are implemented so that the brain can process less information, but more important information. As I am sitting typing this, I am not aware of every sound that I can hear. It is information that gets filtered out as I am trying to concentrate.
George Miller published in 1956 "The Magical Number". The magical number refers to SEVEN plus minus TWO. This means that the magic number includes 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. The reason they call it 'magical' is because we seem to find it in a lot of places. For example, when given a long list of words and the subjects are asked to memorize such words and later on asked to recall them, the great majority of people will be able to recall between five and nine items. (This is, of course, without the aid of repetition). Human working memory can hold on average, seven items. There are strategies to make this number bigger, but in essence that is the idea. Why do we have this limit? No one knows for certain, but everything seems to point to having to refresh the working memory buffer in order to make room for new information.
So, do we really use 10% of the capacity of our brain?
No. We use all the capacity of our brains. When it comes to the potential of our brain and how far we can go by training it, the honest answer is that we don't know. We don't know just how much our brains can hold or do. And to be perfectly honest--we might never know.
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Studies I've read suggest that "experts" are good at what they do because they're able to remember familiar groups as single items and hence can keep "more things" in their working memory than a non expert. For example, a chess master doesn't think about more moves than a novice player, the master knows many recurring patterns and move combinations and treats them as a single item. So while both players may have the same number of items (5-9) in their working memory, the master has a richer experience.
Another example is reciting words or music. If you are familiar with common phrases and expressions (or the equivalent musical passages) and can store them as single items, then you'll be able to recall more than someone who is merely recalling individual words.
Going back to the chess example, experiments were done where masters and novices were each briefly shown chess boards then asked to reproduce the board. When they were shown positions from actual games, the masters almost always perfectly reproduced the boards. But when the chess board positions were random, the masters didn't do any better than novices. The inference here as that the masters were forced to memorize the board like a novice does when no familiar patterns are available.
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