#Funfor thebrain code#
“Here, we were interested in exploring the relationship between language and computer programming, partially because computer programming is such a new invention that we know that there couldn’t be any hardwired mechanisms that make us good programmers.”ĭoes the brain treat code like natural language? Or like logic and math? We addressed this question by measuring fMRI responses to two very different programming languages – Python and ScratchJr (graphical programming language for kids). The paper’s senior author, Evelina Fedorenko, has already been studying the question of whether the brain’s language network is used for other functions, according to an announcement from MIT, which notes that based on her previous work “music and math do not appear to activate this language network.” They also cite Anna Ivanova, an MIT graduate student and the lead author of the study, who explained this next area of exploration. Is it the part that does math? Or is it the part responsible for learning language? Music, Math, and Language Would there be clues for computer science educators - or even some tantalizing insights for the IT world’s developers? And perhaps most notably for computer programming instructors, it seeks to answer the question what part of the brain is most responsible for learning coding skills. The idea was to determine how exactly computer code is comprehended in the brain - how the variables, function names, and keywords become meaningful expressions and then coalesce into a larger whole.
Four researchers - three from MIT and one from Tufts University - performed MRI scans on the brains of dozens of participants performing “program comprehension tasks” in which they predicted a program’s output. What exactly happens when we read computer code? Some interesting research was recently funded to find out by the National Science Foundation, the Department of the Brain and Cognitive Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research.
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