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De(v)bugging the Brain

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A Life in Cognition

Part of the book series: Language, Cognition, and Mind ((LCAM,volume 11))

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Abstract

Debugging is a commonly used term in computer science to describe processes such as detecting, localizing and resolving glitches in the computer program. Historically, the term is attributed to Grace Murray Hopper, an early computer scientist who found an actual moth in one of the first electromechanical computers in 1947. Since then, minor computer problems are “officially” called bugs. Although debugging is still an inherent segment of computer science, and metaphors coming from that field have always been inspiring for researchers in cognitive science, debugging has not become a metaphor like other terms, such as encoding, control, search, retrieval, etc. have. Scientists are looking at the network properties of the brain, and memory retrieval processes of the mind, but no one is looking for debugging procedures in the mind/brain. We suggest that the concept might be particularly useful for the field of developmental neuroscience. Taking the examples of reverse learning, cortical pruning and developmental unlearning, we argue that these might be fine cases of developmental debugging, or, in other words, de(v)bugging. We also propose that the debugging framework might one day reveal the functional anatomy of natural debugging along with its developmental relevance.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to Csaba Pléh who thought me to be brave and read everything that comes along in science, to integrate far away fields in fascinating ways, and to always respect those who first came up with an idea by looking up their papers and giving them the credits.

I would like to thank the creator of the illustrations in this chapter, Timea Jáger, whose graphic art has been very inspiring to me, and increased my hopes that science can be communicated to people outside one’s field with the proper pictures at hand.

I am thankful to Ákos Fehér, my husband and a professional software developer for giving me inspiration and useful comments on this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Psychological Research, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, 1088, Hungary

    Ilona Kovács

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  1. Ilona Kovács
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Correspondence to Ilona Kovács .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. CNRS, Paris, France

    Judit Gervain

  2. Central European University, Budapest, Hungary

    Gergely Csibra

  3. ELTE Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary

    Kristóf Kovács

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Kovács, I. (2022). De(v)bugging the Brain. In: Gervain, J., Csibra, G., Kovács, K. (eds) A Life in Cognition. Language, Cognition, and Mind, vol 11. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66175-5_18

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