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Does Programming Depend More on Math or Language Skills?

Neither, actually, say researchers. It’s a more global network

Researchers have discovered that learning to code software uses not just math or language skills but rather a broader region of the brain called the “multiple demand network,” which is active when we are solving complex problems: “Understanding computer code seems to be its own thing. It’s not the same as language, and it’s not the same as math and logic,” says Anna Ivanova, an MIT graduate student and the lead author of the study. Anne Trafton, “To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language” at MIT News Paper. (open access) (December 15, 2020) Neuroscientist Evelina Fedorenko, another of the study’s authors, says that there are two schools of thought regarding programming: One is, you Read More ›