To date, more than 6 million people have died from COVID-19. To put you in context we will need to destroy each and every one of the inhabitants of Paris, Madrid, Lisbon and Seville. together to reach such a high number. Even on the most illustrative example, we would not be able to understand the scale of this catastrophe, but it is not we who are to blame, but our brain.
“The human brain is simply not designed to understand such large numbers,” they comment. Talk two neuroscientists who study learning and numerical cognition. Although they assure that there is still much to be discovered, something has become crystal clear: we’re terrible at handling too big numbers.
The study was carried out Lindsey Hasak, PhD in Developmental Sciences and Psychology from Stanford University; D Elizabeth Y. Tumaryan, Director of the Synapse School’s Brainwave Learning Center and Research Fellow at Stanford University. Both neuroscientists hope to continue unraveling secrets of human mathematical abilitiesand they have already begun their adventure.
“During the peak of the omicron wave, more than 3,000 US residents died every day,” they comment in their study. make sure this amount already in itself an incomprehensible number for the human mind. On the other hand, a million is nonsense.
“Current neuroscience research may shed light on the brain’s limitations in processing large numbers, limitations that have likely affected how American society perceives and responds to COVID-related deaths.”
Lindsey Hasak and Elizabeth Y. Tumaryan for Talk
Our brains are not designed to count, they are built to compare.
The human brain uses networks of interconnected neurons to process numbers. These “paths” are in many cases associated with the parietal cortex. This triangular area, located above both ears, allows us to understand written language and solve mathematical problems. In addition, it is involved in other cognitive functions such as attention, numerical processing, and working memory.
“It is responsible for processing all kinds of quantities or quantities, including time, speed, and distance. It also provides a foundation for other number skills.”
Talk
Both neuroscientists explain that while the written and spoken symbols we humans use to represent numbers are a cultural invention; there is no understanding of quantity. In fact, not only a person is able to understand them. Other species such as monkeys, fish and birds have also shown pretty basic accounting skillsgiving the first signs a few days after birth.
Distinguishing small numbers is much easier for both the early human species and the most adult stage; as well as for other animals. It’s actually quite easy to visualize the difference between 2 and 5; Bye distinguishing between numbers like 62 and 65 can be much more difficulteven separated by the same number of digits as in the first example.
Brain’s Tendency for Numbers
Default, the brain evolved to recognize small amounts. Cause? People tend to interact more in their daily lives with these figures than with larger ones. Because of this, research shows that both adults and children can quickly recognize numbers less than 3 or 4. However, as the number grows, intuitive thinking is replaced by more abstract concepts; and makes the brain think in large individual numbers.
“This bias towards smaller numbers shows up even in daily grocery store life,” says the aforementioned source. “When the researchers asked shoppers in line at the checkout to estimate the total cost of their purchase, people responded confidently that the price was too low.” They also ensure that this distortion increased as the price increased. That is, the more expensive the food, the greater the difference between the amounts estimated by people and the actual amounts of the products.
Big numbers against the brain
Now that you know that any number greater than 5 can be too big for the human brain, you are probably wondering how does it calculate large numbers? In this case the brain must work with other methods of thinking and let go of intuition.
According to one of the most accepted theories, our brains use an imprecise method when it comes to representing quantities. To do this, use the mental number line. specified line arrange the elements of the equation from left to right – or in the cultural order of a person – but this is too inaccurate and usually incorrect.
Specifically, this brain number line tends to underestimate very large amounts, and overestimate those that are relatively small. This is why sometimes students of geology or biology tend to underestimate the time elapsed between the appearance of the first life and the advent of the dinosaurs. If you don’t know, the two stages are separated by billions of years. However, they tend to overestimate how long dinosaurs lived on Earth – millions of years.
If we could understand…
Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have become accustomed to hearing all sorts of numbers. Some refer to the infected and the dead, others to the recovered. Others, citing the number of purchased and discarded masks. However, all these numbers extremely difficult to understand.
Abstracting from these large numbers, it is easy to forget that these millions of deaths are made up of personalities. Each of them is a lived human experience, completely unique and unrepeatable.
Of course, even with all this theory, these huge numbers will still be difficult to understand. It’s not your fault, it’s just your brain processing your numerical abilities. However, you must not forget that each of these individual numbers matters.
What would happen if we could understand? Perhaps many decisions made in a personal and individual way would not have taken place. We probably would have taken more collective action. Now it doesn’t matter much anymore.
Source: Hiper Textual
