What is it that makes a genius think the way that they do? A question that has been unanswered for years may finally have a solution thanks to the work of researchers at ETH Zurich. The team of scientists has been able to prove conclusively what is known as the neural efficiency hypothesis. This remarkable breakthrough in the scientific understanding of the composition and functionality of the human brain is one more step along the path to discover everything that makes the human mind so miraculous.
Proving the neural efficiency hypothesis
Previously unproven for years since it was developed by scientists, proving the neural efficiency hypothesis was no small feat. Professor for research on learning and instruction at ETH Zurich, Elsbeth Stern describes essentially what the neural efficiency hypothesis is, “when a more and a less intelligent person are given the same task, the more intelligent person requires less cortical activation to solve the task.”
Brains of those with higher levels of intelligence simply require less effort to perform exactly the same tasks as those with lower intelligence levels. These findings imply that a more intelligent person is cognitively capable of performing better than someone with lower intelligence levels. According to the research study when subjects of a higher intelligence were given difficult tasks they required far less resources to successfully complete the task, but when completing remedial tasks the functionality was revealed to be very similar.
Stern describes the nature of resource usage in research subjects “When both cars are travelling slowly, neither car consumes very much fuel. If the efficient car travels at maximum speed, it also consumes a lot of fuel. At moderate speeds, however, the differences in fuel consumption become significant.”
What does this do to aid future research into what separates us from every other species that has ever lived?
Solving the neural efficiency hypothesis has led some rather intriguing conclusions about intelligence. The study has shown that even with memory based exercises in regards to certain tasks (such as playing a musical instrument), when faced with a similar but slightly different task, those who have practiced have no advantage when it comes to new, but slightly different task. This conclusion suggests that is not possible to exercise certain facets of the human memory.
Implications of unwrapping the mysteries of the human brain
For thousands of years humans have made valiant efforts to discover what exactly it is that makes humans different from other species on earth. Until the last hundred years or so the understanding of how it all works was surprisingly limited due to a lack of resources, but thanks to breakthroughs in medicine and computers, our ability to understand what it is that makes us tick has grown faster than early scientists could have ever predicted. Every breakthrough brings us a little bit closer to unlocking the mysteries that make us uniquely human.
