[HN Gopher] Discovering which parts of the brain are engaged whe...
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Discovering which parts of the brain are engaged when coding
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 83 points
Date : 2022-12-29 18:09 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.mit.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.mit.edu)
| falcor84 wrote:
| For anyone here unfamiliar with the power of fMRI studies, I'll
| just link to the one with the dead salmon:
|
| "Neural correlates of interspecies perspective taking in the
| post-mortem Atlantic Salmon: An argument for multiple comparisons
| correction" - https://www.scinapse.io/papers/2043045839
| roxgib wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, I had come here to post a similar take -
| fMRIs have their place, but they also generate a lot of junk
| science.
| wslh wrote:
| I think if you can afford to have these devices at home would be
| more interesting: which parts of the brain work when you use a
| functional programming language? Are these parts different in
| Haskell, ML, F#, or Lisp? And what about a complex templating in
| C++?
| amelius wrote:
| Probably the complete opposite brain regions as those used during
| socializing.
| alunchbox wrote:
| Depends on the project I would say. If you're working alone
| sure, but in a highly collaborative environment I would assume
| it would also interact a bit with the social side since I'm
| constantly thinking of how best to name and communicate my
| design for the next reader.
|
| Also rubber ducking is a pretty social exercise, even if no one
| is there.
| MeteorMarc wrote:
| It will take some time for homo sapiens to develop a dedicated
| cyber cortex for sensing and controlling entities in cyber space.
| sfpotter wrote:
| Do the people submitting these links not realize that these are
| just press releases?
| [deleted]
| leftcenterright wrote:
| Are programmers any different from mathematicians or physicists
| in this aspect of using brain functions?
|
| It takes similar logical skills like:
|
| - Not knowing end result/solution of an equation
|
| - Performing multiple operations to solve different parts of an
| equation
|
| - Crafting an equation to match the observation (similar to
| writing a logical program to achieve a certain end result)
|
| - Dealing with constants that never change
| goethes_kind wrote:
| As somebody who did all three, the difference to me is huge. I
| can do programming half awake no problem but math and physics
| require way more sustained concentration. Part of it is that
| with math, your compiler and debugger is your brain and it is
| faulty. With programming you offload a huge part of the mental
| strain to the computer.
|
| When I'm programming, I often start tackling a complicated
| function (I do ML and numerics) without knowing the logic 100%.
| I just let my instinct guide me and I stumble little by little
| onto the solution with the help of the compiler. You can do the
| same process with math, but the mental strain required is
| orders of magnitudes more because you need to actually do the
| math yourself.
| leftcenterright wrote:
| Magnitue of strain and sustained concentration are really
| good points! Totally agreed on that.
|
| I would however expect similar fundamental brain functions to
| be at play. For debugging and instinct driven tasks, I would
| co-relate that with hit-and-trial methods for solving
| equations or validating equation formulations.
| phototheory wrote:
| This is interesting. Programming languages offer a great
| level of abstraction (especially when working in higher-level
| languages) that let you offload a lot of cognitive effort.
| More-so as you become comfortable with the patterns of the
| language and code base(s) you're working in. I often think of
| it as a logarithmic curve where the first bit requires some
| effort, but eventually things stabilize haha.
| foreverCarlos wrote:
| Great insight! Never considered how much I am relying on
| instinct when coding. Now thinking about it - it plays a very
| important role.
| blobbers wrote:
| I've been pretty interested in this field for awhile.
|
| Has anyone participated in an fMRI study? I'm curious how they do
| this in such a large machine.
|
| I've been interested in conducting ECG based studies at scale on
| people as they learn activities, but the equipment available
| (mindwave neurosky type headsets) is somewhat primitive.
| RheingoldRiver wrote:
| > Has anyone participated in an fMRI study? I'm curious how
| they do this in such a large machine.
|
| Not for this specifically but I've done other fMRI studies and
| I bet they could get you to read code samples and answer
| multiple-choice questions about it by telling the researcher A,
| B, C, or D. e.g. "what would be the output of these 12 lines of
| javascript?" etc. Or you could probably even select a multiple-
| choice from the screen by sliding a selection thing up and down
| over the options and then pressing the trigger for enter (so
| like, there's a joystick + trigger that you hold in your right
| hand)
| fredgrott wrote:
| A bias view:
|
| Some of you know that I am going through a process where after
| getting my ADHD under control with nootropics in that I am now
| basically re-applying computer programming and re-learning it.
|
| It would seem since I am taking lion's mane which does rebuild
| connections between short term and long term memory via BNDFs
| that might be a short term and long term memory connection beyond
| just the areas that are active when coding.
|
| In my own case my understanding of other's coding and my own has
| drastically improved. I am getting close to seeing actual code
| structures by just reading the code which I could not do before.
| foreverCarlos wrote:
| I am curious: have you tried ADHD stimulants like Adderall
| before? And if you have, how does lion's mane effect differ?
| DerekBickerton wrote:
| > the chore of writing code
|
| It's only a chore when you can't envision the end result when
| everything falls into place and everything just works with
| zero/minimal bugs and the program behaves just as you imagined.
| This is the payoff moment we all should anticipate when coding,
| not seeing it as a 'chore' but as a sort of delayed gratification
| exercise where we reap what we sow.
| foreverCarlos wrote:
| I rarely see programming as a chore. It's a creative process
| that engages me in the most challenging and enjoyable ways.
|
| Not sure whether my experience is common.... But maybe if
| someone feels like programming is a chore most of the time it's
| a strong signal that they need to change the job and/or
| profession?
| codr7 wrote:
| I've been writing code for 37 years now; mostly every day
| since I was 8yo, 27 or so professionally.
|
| I still enjoy it occasionally on my own terms, but writing
| the kind of code that people would pay me to write is mostly
| dreadful at this point. I've seen it all before and the
| problems aren't interesting enough to keep me motivated.
|
| Which is why I'm shifting into project management.
|
| I still remember the excitement I felt in the beginning
| though, where every piece of code was a new adventure.
|
| My point is, things change with time and experience.
| foreverCarlos wrote:
| Totally understandable! I didn't mean that the people who
| don't enjoy programming anymore are in any way inferior to
| others. Just that other projects or professions could offer
| them more joy.
| ryanchants wrote:
| I'm writing this will waiting for an validation run of a new
| project's MVP to finish running. The excitement building up to
| this, and how happy I'll be when (if, so not to jinx) it
| succeeds is palpable.
| z3t4 wrote:
| I like the research part, where you research and try different
| stuff. Writing CRUD apps where you know exactly what to "code"
| it will just take hours to set up the boilerplate, write tests,
| etc, it does feel like a chore.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| It's also a chore when the ratio of work to value is high
| relative to other tasks. Unfortunately lot of tasks fall in to
| this category.
| jonahx wrote:
| Even more so: When "ancillary work" to "task work" ratio is
| high.
|
| For example, to start you spend 20m getting the local
| developer setup for that repo working because the docs are
| out of date, and then because the repo is rarely used another
| 45m updating node dependencies and wrangling webpack to
| satisfy new security warnings. Then 5 minutes of actual work:
| you add a new form field and update some CSS. Now wait 50
| minutes for the CI to pass so you can merge your work.
|
| No exaggeration -- these scenarios were common at my previous
| job.
| [deleted]
| oh_my_goodness wrote:
| This is about as credible as an MIT press release!
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| Yeah, MIT research is... very good at PR.
| triska wrote:
| Quoting from the article:
|
| " _Take, for instance, a loop ..._ "
|
| Personally, I write most programs in a logic programming language
| that _has no loops_. I wonder whether the engaged brain areas
| also depend on the programming language. The previous study used
| for example Python, an imperative language, and mentiond
| "Language system responses during code comprehension are weak and
| inconsistent":
|
| https://elifesciences.org/articles/58906
|
| Could it be that language system responses are stronger for more
| declarative programming languages, where a clear description of
| the problem is of greater importance?
| hbarka wrote:
| I'm curious in the world of programming languages are there
| discrete sets of these categories (declarative, imperative,
| etc.) or is it on a spectrum? Are there languages where it can
| be defined as having characteristics of both declarative and
| imperative?
| cratermoon wrote:
| Academia, except for corners of programs related to computer
| science and software engineering, has zero idea what
| professional programming is really like.
| foreverCarlos wrote:
| TBH even in those corners professors often have either a very
| outdated idea of programming or a surprisingly bad practical
| skill set.
| jand wrote:
| OK, this may be news not intended for me, but can you help me
| out?
|
| > What the group wanted to find out was whether the brain signals
| seen in their study when participants were examining pieces of
| code resembled the patterns of activation observed when neural
| networks analyzed the same piece of code. And the answer they
| arrived at was a qualified yes.
|
| Does this allow meaningful conclusions? I have difficulties to
| decide whether the article tries make a statement or tries to
| promote a hypothesis.
| psyklic wrote:
| In general, a brain model is not meaningful unless it is
| falsifiable. Meaning, the model would make (ideally surprising
| and specific) predictions that could be tested via experiment.
| Historically, the vast majority of brain models are not
| falsifiable, which is why theoretical neuroscience has not
| played a larger role in the field.
| ghaff wrote:
| In general, yes? It's an interesting question to what degree
| neural networks and the brain are similar and to what degree
| they're dissimilar. A fair bit of other work by Nancy Kanwisher
| using similar techniques has focused on localizing all sorts of
| sensory and other systems.
|
| But it's been an area with slow progress. Some of the debates
| about how e.g. face detection works are debates that were going
| on when I took brain science in the late 70s. That's one reason
| why so much of the AI community has basically punted to just
| machine learning.
| darthrupert wrote:
| None of them?
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