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Comment by rvense | Hacker News Reader

When people see, the brain's algebra area lights up.

Except that the article says sighted people do not have an increase in that area when doing algebra.

I tend to agree with the premise of the article, which is brain areas can be reapportioned for different tasks.

I'm pretty sure that I engage the visual part of my brain in those moments when I truly understand algebra. It's very beautifully overwhelming and understanding such complex mathematics through visualisation brings about one of the few moments where I get naturally high through cognitive tasks.

I wouldn't consider myself a very visual person otherwise.

> I'm pretty sure that I engage the visual part of my brain in those moments when I truly understand algebra.

With no offence meant to your self knowledge, and with the understanding that you were probably not one of those tested and that our (meaning their, I guess) understanding of the workings of the brain is imperfect, I think that the point of brain imaging software is in large part so that we don't have to rely on "I'm pretty sure", and indeed can have confidence even in unintuitive conclusions.

> With no offence meant to your self knowledge, and with the understanding that you were probably not one of those tested and that our (meaning their, I guess) understanding of the workings of the brain is imperfect, I think that the point of brain imaging software is in large part so that we don't have to rely on "I'm pretty sure", and indeed can have confidence even in unintuitive conclusions.

Self-knowledge is not a good way to divine the functioning of the brain. However, one could say fMRI is not a good way either, at the very least studies based solely on fMRI data should be taken with a boatload of salt. See for example: http://www.pnas.org/content/113/28/7900.full

> Functional MRI (fMRI) is 25 years old, yet surprisingly its most common statistical methods have not been validated using real data. Here, we used resting-state fMRI data from 499 healthy controls to conduct 3 million task group analyses. Using this null data with different experimental designs, we estimate the incidence of significant results. In theory, we should find 5% false positives (for a significance threshold of 5%), but instead we found that the most common software packages for fMRI analysis (SPM, FSL, AFNI) can result in false-positive rates of up to 70%. These results question the validity of a number of fMRI studies and may have a large impact on the interpretation of weakly significant neuroimaging results.

It's possible. That would still fit the general premise that people can "rewire" their own brains through use. One of the leading theories of Synesthesia is that different areas of the brain are not separated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_basis_of_synesthesia#Cr...

It would follow that it is possible that they could then be rejoined as well.

I'm the same way and came to a similar conclusion a while back. For me, understanding math has been an incredibly visual process more than anything. It's a very useful heuristic. Programming is similar, but its discreteness seems to make it significantly less visual.

While I understand that "programming is not visual" is a common point of view, I strongly disagree with it. See here:

http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/

I should clarify - it absolutely is visual. Just less so than pure maths.

This comment reminds me of high school physics, when we were learning about interference and those double slit experiments. The teacher would give different scenarios and ask us to predict what patterns would be observed. In one, the pattern was alternating bands of dark and light. I was the only kid who could figure it out, and the physics teacher was so visibly impressed, he to started calling me the thinker. That thing, visualizing something given to you in mathematical form, feels very good indeed.

> That thing, visualizing something given to you in mathematical form, feels very good indeed

I agree completely. I still remember the feeling I got when I was able to visualize differential equations in relation to "normal" calculus. It completely changed the way I thought about math.

Can you describe what exactly happens/feels/what is this visualization of the mathematics?

I wonder if sighted people have so much activity in that area all the time that the noise drowns it out.

Talk about double blind testing.

I get your point but it's absurd to call V1 - V3 an "algebra area". We actually do have a thing called "primary visual cortex" and mental calculations are known to exploit a number of existing functional areas (visual word-form area, primary visual cortex, etc).

I don't think that the name many humans have agreeds to call an area of the brain is an objectively true label for it.

I mean it's not like there's an owners manual for the human brain.

Yes, we're working on writing it and will let you know.

The point is that it's pretty clearly a visual area above all else. The pathway from the eye to V1 is possibly the most extensively studied functional neuroanatomical pathway in the brain.

It's also well-established that it takes input from other regions and that this adjusts visual percepts. The idea that mathematical operations recruit visual areas is unsurprising and predicted by every theory of numerical cognition there is. That's why this is interesting.

I'm sorry, but what you're claiming is patently absurd (and, I suspect, purely contrarian).

This is perhaps a poor backup claim because I can't give a relevant citation, but back when I was in Neuroscience / neuroanatomy in medical school, I remember feeling deeply impressed at the level to which we do understand the visual processing system in the brain. Its far more comprehensive than simple imaging studies -- we know where the wires go, how the photons are transduced and turned into patterns of neurons firing, etc. There's of course plenty to learn but our depth of understanding in regards to human vision is impressive.

Maybe that explains why I can't see (I bump into things) when I'm doing algebra or other complex logical thinking.

I suspect that's rather a case of inattentional blindness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inattentional_blindness

I call it "the reverse case of ZX-80".

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