{"id":15438,"date":"2019-08-06T13:59:39","date_gmt":"2019-08-06T17:59:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/?p=15438"},"modified":"2024-07-08T06:05:21","modified_gmt":"2024-07-08T10:05:21","slug":"mind-reading-study-connects-spatial-problem-solving-with-computer-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/2019\/08\/06\/mind-reading-study-connects-spatial-problem-solving-with-computer-science\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cMind reading\u201d study connects spatial problem solving with computer science"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"700\" height=\"466\" src=\"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/mindreading-700x466.png\" alt=\"programmer at computer with headset connected to neural transmitters\" class=\"wp-image-15441\"\/><figcaption>(Michigan Engineering)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A group of researchers led by engineering professor <strong>Westley Weimer<\/strong> and grad student <strong>Yu Huang<\/strong> used real-time fMRI readings to <a href=\"https:\/\/news.engin.umich.edu\/2019\/08\/mind-reading-study-connects-spatial-problem-solving-with-computer-science\/\">look inside coders\u2019 brains while they program<\/a>. This \u201cmind reading\u201d project studied whether manipulating data structures in a program (like balancing a tree) uses the same parts of the brain as spatial reasoning (rotating a map or turning a key in a lock). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Study participants were tasked with mentally manipulating lists, arrays, and trees. Afterwards, they completed mental rotation tasks such as determining if two perspective drawings portrayed the same 3D shapes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ultimately, researchers concluded that data structure and spatial operations are related but distinct neural tasks, using the same regions of the brain but to different degrees. In fact, 95%&nbsp; of the study\u2019s tree problems and mental rotation problems were statistically indistinguishable.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A group of researchers led by engineering professor Westley Weimer and grad student Yu Huang used real-time fMRI readings to look inside coders\u2019 brains while they program. This \u201cmind reading\u201d project studied whether manipulating data structures in a program (like balancing a tree) uses the same parts of the brain as spatial reasoning (rotating a map or turning\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/2019\/08\/06\/mind-reading-study-connects-spatial-problem-solving-with-computer-science\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_umich_oidc_access":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[177,130],"class_list":["post-15438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-news","tag-programming","tag-research"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/mindreading-e1567447963299.png",600,400,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/mindreading-200x133.png",200,133,true],"medium":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/mindreading-300x200.png",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/mindreading-768x512.png",665,443,true],"large":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/mindreading-700x466.png",600,399,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/mindreading-e1567447963299.png",600,400,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/mindreading-e1567447963299.png",600,400,false],"excerpt-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/mindreading-200x140.png",200,140,true],"themonic-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/mindreading-60x42.png",60,42,true],"ioslider-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/mindreading-658x300.png",658,300,true],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/mindreading-665x443.png",665,443,true],"400x250-crop":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/mindreading-e1567447963299.png",375,250,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"News Staff","author_link":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/author\/mitnewsadm\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"A group of researchers led by engineering professor Westley Weimer and grad student Yu Huang used real-time fMRI readings to look inside coders\u2019 brains while they program. This \u201cmind reading\u201d project studied whether manipulating data structures in a program (like balancing a tree) uses the same parts of the brain as spatial reasoning (rotating a&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15438"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15444,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15438\/revisions\/15444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}