Passing slider explanation?

I've never quite understood the passing slider 100%. When you set a players passing slider to for instance 1 (shortest available), does that mean he will always make an extremely short pass whoever is near him(maybe even fail to make a pass if there's no teammate within a few metres), or will he try to pass the teammate that's closest to him, constantly. When setting the slider to 5, will he look for the nearest teammate and maybe the one nearest beyond? or will he simply make passes that are five times as long as the shortest option?

Note: These are just examples, I want to know the principle of the slider.

It's messing my head up!

You can think of it like that. Yes. Or think it as %. So 5 slide = 95% short passing. 10 slide = 50% short, 50% long so Mixed Passing.