Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!convex!killer!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!NPRDC.ARPA!hartung From: hartung@NPRDC.ARPA (Jeff Hartung) Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Re: Can we human being think two different things in parallel? Message-ID: <19880827040817.6.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU> Date: 27 Aug 88 04:08:00 GMT Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 41 Approved: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu To: comp-ai-digest@ucsd.edu Path: nprdc!hartung From: Jeff Hartung Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Re: Can we human being think two different things in parallel? Date: Thu, 25 Aug 88 10:39 EDT References: <19880824193858.5.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU> Sender: news@nprdc.arpa Reply-To: Jeff Hartung Organization: Navy Personnel R&D Center, San Diego Lines: 28 In a previous article, Ken Johnson writes: >>Can we human being think two different things in parallel? > >I think most people have had the experience of suddenly gaining insight >into the solution of a problem they last deliberately chewed over a few >hours or days previously. I'd say this was evidence for the brain's >ability to work at two or more (?) high-order tasks at the same time. >But I look forward to reading what Real Psychologists say. The above may demonstrate that the brain can "process" two jobs simultaneously, but is this what we mean by "think"? If so, this still doesn't demonstrate adequately that parallel processing is what is going on. It may be equally true that serial processing on several jobs is happening, only some processing is below the threshold of awareness. Or, there may be parallel processing, but with a limited number of processes at the level of awareness of the "thinker". On the other hand, if we take "thinking" to mean an activity which the "thinker" is aware of, at least in that it is going on, then there is strong evidence that there is only limited capacity to attand to multiple tasks simultaneously, but there is no final conclusion on this ability as far as I know. Many studies in the ability to attand to multiple tasks or perceptual stimuli simultaneously are still being done. --Jeff Hartung-- ARPA - hartung@nprdc.arpa hartung@sdics.ucsd.edu UUCP - !ucsd!nprdc!hartung !ucsd!sdics!hartung