I’m not sure it is the proper baseline, actually: if I am systematically spending more time thinking about a thought when writing than when not-writing, then that’s a predictable fact about the process of writing that I can make use of.
Leaving that aside, though: yes, for even moderately complex thoughts, writing it down causes me to notice more things than thinking about them for the same period of time. I am far more likely to get into loops, far less likely to notice gaps, and far more likely to rely on cached thoughts if I’m just thinking in my head.
What counts as “moderately complex” has a lot to do with what my buffer-capacity is; when I was recovering from my stroke I noticed this effect with even simple logic-puzzles of the sort that I now just solve intuitively. But the real world is full of things that are worth thinking about that my buffers aren’t large enough to examine in detail.
I’m not sure it is the proper baseline, actually: if I am systematically spending more time thinking about a thought when writing than when not-writing, then that’s a predictable fact about the process of writing that I can make use of.
Leaving that aside, though: yes, for even moderately complex thoughts, writing it down causes me to notice more things than thinking about them for the same period of time. I am far more likely to get into loops, far less likely to notice gaps, and far more likely to rely on cached thoughts if I’m just thinking in my head.
What counts as “moderately complex” has a lot to do with what my buffer-capacity is; when I was recovering from my stroke I noticed this effect with even simple logic-puzzles of the sort that I now just solve intuitively. But the real world is full of things that are worth thinking about that my buffers aren’t large enough to examine in detail.