5 ms·

Discovering which parts of the brain are engaged when coding

blobbers 4y ago
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 4y ago
  > 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)
amelius 4y ago
Probably the complete opposite brain regions as those used during socializing.
- alunchbox 4y ago
  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 4y ago
It will take some time for homo sapiens to develop a dedicated cyber cortex for sensing and controlling entities in cyber space.
oh_my_goodness 4y ago
This is about as credible as an MIT press release!
- AceJohnny2 4y ago
  Yeah, MIT research is... very good at PR.
jand 4y ago
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.
- ghaff 4y ago
  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.
- psyklic 4y ago
  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.
sfpotter 4y ago
Do the people submitting these links not realize that these are just press releases?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
DerekBickerton 4y ago
> 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.
- dpkirchner 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      [deleted]
- z3t4 4y ago
  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.
- foreverCarlos 4y ago
  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?
wslh 4y ago
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++?
leftcenterright 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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.
  - foreverCarlos 4y ago
    Great insight! Never considered how much I am relying on instinct when coding. Now thinking about it - it plays a very important role.
  - leftcenterright 4y ago
    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 4y ago
    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.
fredgrott 4y ago
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 4y ago
  I am curious: have you tried ADHD stimulants like Adderall before? And if you have, how does lion’s mane effect differ?
triska 4y ago
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 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?
- cratermoon 4y ago
  Academia, except for corners of programs related to computer science and software engineering, has zero idea what professional programming is really like.
  - foreverCarlos 4y ago
    TBH even in those corners professors often have either a very outdated idea of programming or a surprisingly bad practical skill set.
    - cratermoon 4y ago
      Yeah, corners within those corners, more accurately.
- hbarka 4y ago
  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?
falcor84 4y ago
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 https://www.scinapse.io/papers/2043045839
- roxgib 4y ago
  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.
- threads2 4y ago
  Forgot about this. Thank you!
darthrupert 4y ago
None of them?

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 4y ago
> 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)

amelius 4y ago

Probably the complete opposite brain regions as those used during socializing.

alunchbox 4y ago
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 4y ago

It will take some time for homo sapiens to develop a dedicated cyber cortex for sensing and controlling entities in cyber space.

oh_my_goodness 4y ago

This is about as credible as an MIT press release!

AceJohnny2 4y ago
Yeah, MIT research is... very good at PR.

jand 4y ago

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.

ghaff 4y ago
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.
psyklic 4y ago
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.

sfpotter 4y ago

Do the people submitting these links not realize that these are just press releases?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

DerekBickerton 4y ago

> 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.

dpkirchner 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    [deleted]
z3t4 4y ago
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.
foreverCarlos 4y ago
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?

wslh 4y ago

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++?

leftcenterright 4y ago

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 4y ago
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.
- foreverCarlos 4y ago
  Great insight! Never considered how much I am relying on instinct when coding. Now thinking about it - it plays a very important role.
- leftcenterright 4y ago
  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 4y ago
  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.

fredgrott 4y ago

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 4y ago
I am curious: have you tried ADHD stimulants like Adderall before? And if you have, how does lion’s mane effect differ?

triska 4y ago

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 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?

cratermoon 4y ago
Academia, except for corners of programs related to computer science and software engineering, has zero idea what professional programming is really like.
- foreverCarlos 4y ago
  TBH even in those corners professors often have either a very outdated idea of programming or a surprisingly bad practical skill set.
  - cratermoon 4y ago
    Yeah, corners within those corners, more accurately.
hbarka 4y ago
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?

falcor84 4y ago

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 https://www.scinapse.io/papers/2043045839

roxgib 4y ago
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.
threads2 4y ago
Forgot about this. Thank you!

darthrupert 4y ago

None of them?