Dear Hannah, the thesis is very interesting. Did you find any relevant papers so far?
Would love to hear about it. Thanks! Dennis. -------- Original-Nachricht -------- > Datum: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 15:43:43 +0000 (GMT) > Von: hannah wright <[email protected]> > An: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> > Betreff: Computer programmers vs bilinguals: shared cognitive benefits? > Dear all > > Maria suggested that I approach you with this request for help with some > research I'm doing. Any thoughts or suggestions that you could offer would > be very much appreciated. > > > I'm a masters student at the Institute of Education, and for my > dissertation I would like to find out whether the regular use of computer > programming > languages creates the same cognitive benefits associated with > bilingualism. I'm writing to you in the hope that you could recommend some > relevant > papers that I should read - I've found lots of stuff on the cognitive > effects of computer programming from the 80s and early 90s, but not much after > that, and I'm wondering if the terminology has changed so I'm missing things, > or if it's just a topic that has fallen out of fashion. > > To explain a bit more, Ellen Bialystok and various colleagues > (e.g.http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/19/1/19.short) have recently researched > the way > bilingualism affects cognitive performance over a lifetime. They have found > that bilinguals perform better in non-verbal tasks requiring conflict > resolution, such as Stroop and Simon tasks. They suggest that this is due to > executive control needed to switch between different languages. They did not > find these advantages in speech-sign bilinguals who can resolve the conflict > be producing both languages simultaneously. However, from what I've read > about the problems novices have with learning to programme, they often seem to > wrongly apply meaning and/or syntax from spoken languages when they're > programming, so maybe the conflict would exist here, leading to similar > structural changes which could be indicated through performance in Stroop and > Simon tasks. > > Basically, I'm interested in finding any recent work on if/how computer > programming changes the structure and/or function of the brain. I'd be hugely > grateful of any suggestions of papers, books or even search terms that I > might not have thought of. > > Thanks very much for your help. > > Hannah > > -- > The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an > exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC > 038302). -- Empfehlen Sie GMX DSL Ihren Freunden und Bekannten und wir belohnen Sie mit bis zu 50,- Euro! https://freundschaftswerbung.gmx.de
