The world is seeing an increase in students interested in computer science and the age of students beginning to code is getting younger and younger. As such, interest in how the brain adapts to computer programming has risen. A recent study in Japan has looked into brain activity of programmers, with findings suggesting that higher programming skills are built upon fine-tuned brain activities.
"Many studies have reported differences between expert and novice programmers in behavioural performance, knowledge structure and selective attention. What we don't know is where in the brain these differences emerge," says Takatomi Kubo, an associate professor at Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan, and one of the lead authors of the study.
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"Identifying these characteristics in expert programmers' brains offers a good starting point for understanding the cognitive mechanisms behind programming expertise. Our findings illuminate the potential set of cognitive functions constituting programming expertise," Kubo says.
"Programming is a relatively new activity in human history and the mechanism is largely unknown. Connecting the activity to other well-known human cognitive functions will improve our understanding of programming expertise. If we get more comprehensive theory about programming expertise, it will lead to better methods for learning and teaching computer programming," Kubo says.
Source: Science Daily
