Critical Velocity

Today in class, the intuitive notion was raised that critical thinking was essentially slow. This was used in evidence for why critical thinking would be inappropriate in times that demanded immediate action. So I wanted to, for the sake of that application, contend that critical thinking is not, by its nature, a slow process.

First and foremost, critical thinking is a mental process; it is, after all, a form of thinking. The average thought takes approximately 550-750 milliseconds to process, with comprehension beginning at 250-450 milliseconds. So the question becomes: what aspect of critical thinking necessarily adds to this time frame?

The answer provided in class was to juxtapose critical thinking to automatic thinking, and since automatic thinking is fast, critical thinking is not. But that is insufficient. The juxtaposition does not mean they do that share certain qualities.

Perhaps it is the nature of critical thinking to be plural; perhaps a critical thought does not exist alone because critical thinking involves multiple thoughts. But if this is the case, the burden becomes demonstrating the correct quantity. How many thoughts need to be processed before critical thinking occurs. The most that can be said from this view is that critical thinking may be slower than regular thinking. But slow per se is not a claim that follows.

While it may be said that critical thinking is optimum if completed over a certain length of time, critical thinking exists along a continuum of quality. Critical thinking is not infallible. There is some critical thinking that is better than others. While good critical thinking may be slower, there is not a situation, I think that would be worsened by the application of critical thinking over regular thinking.

Question: Is there a temporal difference between a critical thought and a regular (meaning all other kinds) thought?