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What Is Cognitive Bandwidth?

Information systems typically attempt to transfer information, knowledge and wisdom from a computer system to the memory of a human being. However, the efficiency of information transfer is subject to the limitations of the human cognitive system, otherwise known as cognitive bandwidth. Human beings have the capacity to take in vast amounts of information using an area of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex, but too much information can still overload the system.

Bandwidth
- In technical systems, bandwidth refers to the transmission capacity of an electronic device or system, or how much information that device or system can deliver at once. In human beings, cognitive bandwidth refers to the information processing capacity of the brain and, in common with technical systems, the brain can process only so much information at once. The human cognitive system can be divided into information storage facilities -- that is, short-term memory and long-term memory -- and processing facilities. However, both information storage and processing facilities are controlled by the central executive function of the brain, which exercises overall control over cognitive processes.
Limits
- In 1956, the American psychologist George Armitage Miller published a paper entitled ̶0;The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two," which paved the way to psychological theory and research into cognitive bandwidth. Miller estimated that the human capacity for processing information was limited to seven, plus or minus two, concepts at a time. Later studies, in the laboratory and in the field, indicated that if amount of information received exceeds the limits of short-term memory, human beings experience psychological stress and their ability to understand information deteriorates rapidly.
External Stimuli
- A human being driving a motor vehicle in a busy urban environment must process information from traffic, traffic signals, traffic signs, pedestrians and numerous other sources simultaneously. In fact, to prevent information overload, the human brain learns to filter out irrelevant stimuli so that the driver retains sufficient cognitive bandwidth to respond effectively to those stimuli that are important. In aerospace, the problem of information overload is even worse, so aerospace manufacturers typically provide pilots with audible, as well as visual, information and warning systems.
Multimedia
- Effective multimedia resources rely on blending together text, still and moving images and audio in such a way as to minimize the amount of cognitive bandwidth required to process and remember the information contained in the media. From a multimedia user̵7;s point of view, information contained in an image, or a series of images, is often easier to digest than information presented in purely textual form.

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