Comprehension of computer code relies primarily on domain-general executive brain regions
Name
elife-58906-v1.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.12 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
6da70b098b673750218217c393de9887
Author(s)
Ivanova, Anna A
Srikant, Shashank
Sueoka, Yotaro
Kean, Hope
Dhamala, Riva
O'Reilly, Una-May
Bers, Marina U
Fedorenko, Evelina G
Date Issued
December 2020
Journal
eLife
Publisher
eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
Citation
Ivanova, Anna A et al. "Comprehension of computer code relies primarily on domain-general executive brain regions." eLife 9 (December 2020): e58906 © 2020 Ivanova et al.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Computer programming is a novel cognitive tool that has transformed modern society. What cognitive and neural mechanisms support this skill? Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate two candidate brain systems: The multiple demand (MD) system, typically recruited during math, logic, problem solving, and executive tasks, and the language system, typically recruited during linguistic processing. We examined MD and language system responses to code written in Python, a text-based programming language (Experiment 1) and in ScratchJr, a graphical programming language (Experiment 2); for both, we contrasted responses to code problems with responses to content-matched sentence problems. We found that the MD system exhibited strong bilateral responses to code in both experiments, whereas the language system responded strongly to sentence problems, but weakly or not at all to code problems. Thus, the MD system supports the use of novel cognitive tools even when the input is structurally similar to natural language.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.58906
