On 13 January 2013 15:38, Kassen <signal.automatique_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> On the other hand; maybe it would be interesting to try to somehow
> come up with a setup where you *could* read while dancing. My gut
> feeling says interested researchers could do worse than trying to play
> Dance Dance Revolution once (you'll suck at first, stick with it for a
> evening, get a volunteer for friendly competition).
That would be a nice challenge, and I remember an UberGeek performance with DDR.
But then I'd go further and say you can't read while listening to
music either, in that you try to attend to both, you will not attend
to much of either.
My own experience of live coding is listening to the music, and not
following the code at all. Partly because the music is more
interesting than the code, and partly because my eyes just glaze over
when I'm listening to interesting music.
But then I do of course listen to the music while live coding, for
example I am aware of how many repetitions the current pattern has
done in order to know when to make the next transition, and I reckon I
am thinking about and enjoying the structure while I type. Somehow the
same contention isn't present, perhaps because as programmer, I
experience the code and the music as part of the same stream, i.e.
perhaps because I am 'reading' the code by listening to the output. Or
perhaps it is just easier to read your own code than someone else's,
so there is less contention.
There is experimental psychology to do here :) Paivio's "dual coding
theory" is very relevant.
alex
Received on Sun Jan 13 2013 - 16:05:45 GMT