How Flowcharts Got into the Brain: Diagramming Brains, Minds and Computers Together

流程图如何进入大脑：用图表将大脑、思维和计算机结合在一起

• 批准号: 0924988
• 负责人: Joseph Dumit
• 金额: $ 22.84万
• 依托单位: University of California-Davis
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-10-01 至 2014-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0924988&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: How; Flowcharts; Got; into; Brain

This project, supported by the Biology & Society initiative between the Science, Technology & Society Program and the BIO directorate at NSF, examines the role of flowcharts in neurosciences. Flowcharts are commonly used today in computer science, psychology, and neuroscience. Despite the near ubiquity of diagrams like flowcharts in the development of computers and the founding of neural nets, artificial intelligence, and cognitive psychology and neuroscience, there has been almost no attention paid to the history and uses of those diagrams. This project examines the impact that visual diagrams and flowcharts had on the development of computers, psychology and neuroscience from the 1940s and 1970s. Published reports and archival research provide the basis for this study of the interactions between programming diagrams, flowcharts, neural models, and brain modules, as their conceivers borrowed and built upon visual metaphors and analogies. Engaging with scholarship on the importance of drawing and visual ways of thinking in the growth of science, this project investigates whether and how these diagrams and models enabled and constrained theories and experiments in cognitive neuroscience and artificial intelligence research.This project will augment our understanding of the historical development of computers, brains, artificial intelligence, and cognitive psychology by demonstrating their sometime dependence and interaction with flow diagrams. It promises a richer, more comprehensive and balanced historical grasp of several aspects of the mind-brain-computer nexus than has hitherto been available, potentially clarifying a key episode in the history of modern science and technology. The project documents the variety of flowchart techniques, as well as alternate ways of reading and interacting with the diagrams that may be worth revisiting. If successful, contemporary cognitive scientists, neuroscientists and AI researchers may benefit directly from rethinking the meaning and use of their diagrams.

这个项目，由科学，技术社会计划和生物学会理事会在NSF之间的生物学会倡议的支持，检查流程图在神经科学中的作用。 流程图目前在计算机科学、心理学和神经科学中广泛使用。尽管在计算机的发展和神经网络、人工智能、认知心理学和神经科学的建立中，流程图等图表几乎无处不在，但几乎没有人关注这些图表的历史和用途。 该项目研究了视觉图表和流程图对20世纪40年代和70年代计算机，心理学和神经科学发展的影响。已发表的报告和档案研究为这项研究提供了基础，研究了编程图、流程图、神经模型和大脑模块之间的相互作用，因为它们的构思者借鉴并建立在视觉隐喻和类比的基础上。该项目致力于研究绘画和视觉思维方式在科学发展中的重要性，研究这些图表和模型是否以及如何在认知神经科学和人工智能研究中启用和约束理论和实验。该项目将增加我们对计算机，大脑，人工智能，和认知心理学，通过展示他们的时间依赖性和相互作用的流程图。它承诺比迄今为止更丰富，更全面，更平衡的历史把握心灵-大脑-计算机关系的几个方面，有可能澄清现代科学和技术史上的一个关键事件。该项目记录了各种流程图技术，以及阅读和与图交互的替代方法，这些方法可能值得重新访问。如果成功的话，当代认知科学家、神经科学家和人工智能研究人员可能会从重新思考他们的图表的意义和使用中直接受益。