Publication Date

2-2019

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Technical Report: UTEP-CS-19-12

Abstract

A recent study of chimpanzees has shown that on the individual basis, they are, surprisingly, much better than humans in simple tasks requiring intelligence and memory. A usual explanation -- called cognitive tradeoff -- is that a human brain has sacrificed some of its data processing (computation) abilities in favor of enhancing the ability to communicate; as a result, while individual humans may not be as smart as possible, jointly, we can solve complex problems. A similar cognitive tradeoff phenomenon can be observed in computer clusters: the most efficient computer clusters are not formed from the fastest, most efficient computers, they are formed from not-so-fast computers which are, however, better in their communication abilities than the fastest ones. In this paper, we propose a simple model that explains the cognitive tradeoff phenomenon.

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