Another place to look for ideas about answering this question is my recently-completed thesis. I had non-programmers write solutions to (programming-like) problems using their own words and pictures, and then had expert programmers analyze the solutions to try to identify how they matched various styles of programming. The studies are described in Chapter 3 of my thesis, and Chapter 4 describes a follow-on study to explore some of the results from the first studies.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pane/thesis
John
On 1/10/03, Arman Anwar wrote:
Greetings, I would appreciate it if someone could point me in the right direction to material that could help me with the following problemMy interest primarily focuses on how the brain represents and reasons about parts of the physical universe. Let us for example take the instance of a simple traffic light system controlled 4 way crossing. Does the brain reason about this simple reality as - an algorithm of changing states (red -> greed -> orange .... ) - Or does it reason about it as a rule set: the crossing is composed of for directions .. each direction is governed by a traffic light the traffic light for two crossing direction must include a red light (or we'll have an accident) - Or does it reason about it in terms of objects such as the crossing has four traffic lights the traffic lights have three colors. - Or something vastly different - Or we haven't got a clue You see I'm trying to compare the various types of programming languages against how closely they match the human thinking process. The argument I'm trying to make is that if a computer programming method is developed that is well aligned with the human process of thought then we shall get more understandable designs. My "layman" suspicions are that the human mind uses several abstract representation methods simultaneously and "somehow" weaves in/out off or integrates there different representations. Arman. -----Original Message----- From: Jack L. DiGiuseppe, Ph.D. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 2:11 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: The brain Arman, When we talked at the NAG, I mentioned that I would ask a friend of mine, who is a student of the mind, about reference sources on how the brain works. Before I do that, could you please send me kind of a capsule summary of the specific aspect of the workings of the brain that you are interested in. I'm afraid I have forgotten some of the things we talked about. Best regards, - Jack -----Original Message----- From: Anwar, Arman Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 3:03 PM To: 'Jack L. DiGiuseppe, Ph.D.' Cc: Anwar, Arman; '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: The brain Hello Jack, Great to hear from you. I was, Actually thinking of writing to you a few days back. Unfortunately I must have gotten consumed by the mundane realities of life. Well anyway, better late than never. My interest primarily focuses on how the brain represents and reasons about parts of the physical universe. Let us for example take the instance of a simple traffic light system controlled 4 way crossing. Does the brain reason about this simple reality as - an algorithm of changing states (red -> greed -> orange .... ) - Or does it reason about it as rule set: the crossing is composed of for directions .. each direction is governed by a traffic light the traffic light for two crossing direction must include a red light (or we'll have an accident) - Or does it reason about it in terms of objects such as the crossing has four traffic lights the traffic lights have three colors. - Or something vastly different You see I'm trying to compare the various types of programming languages against how closely they match the human thinking process. The argument I'm trying to make is that if a computer programming method is developed that is well aligned with the human process of thought then we shall get more understandable designs. My layman suspicions are that the human mind uses several abstract representation methods simultaneously and "somehow" weaves in/out off or integrates there different representations. Arman. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
