Influencing Code Reading Through Beacons: an Eye-Tracking Study
(2023) PPIG: 34th Annual Meeting of the Psychology of Programming Interest Group- Abstract
- When interacting with other humans, we attempt to develop a shared understanding using various means. One such method is through our eyes: when someone is looking at something, we understand that their attention is focused on that object. In this work, we present the results of an eye-tracking study built upon the Progger tool, in which we used additional code highlighting in an attempt to influence the gaze behaviour of a human programmer, thereby focusing their attention. We found that though it is possible to draw attention towards areas of particular interest to the compiler, this has no apparent effect upon performance when confronted with a bug-finding code comprehension task. We conclude that although this strategy may be of use in... (More)
- When interacting with other humans, we attempt to develop a shared understanding using various means. One such method is through our eyes: when someone is looking at something, we understand that their attention is focused on that object. In this work, we present the results of an eye-tracking study built upon the Progger tool, in which we used additional code highlighting in an attempt to influence the gaze behaviour of a human programmer, thereby focusing their attention. We found that though it is possible to draw attention towards areas of particular interest to the compiler, this has no apparent effect upon performance when confronted with a bug-finding code comprehension task. We conclude that although this strategy may be of use in the future when attempting to humanise the process of programming, further research is required to establish the efficacy of such interventions. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/6f0c6d15-0f69-422a-bef8-c32e3c1fed4c
- author
- McCabe, Alan LU ; Niehorster, Diederick C LU and Söderberg, Emma LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2023
- type
- Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
- publication status
- published
- subject
- host publication
- Proceedings of the 34th Annual Workshop of the Psychology of Programming Interest Group
- publisher
- Psychology of Programming Interest Group
- conference name
- PPIG: 34th Annual Meeting of the Psychology of Programming Interest Group
- conference location
- Lund, Sweden
- conference dates
- 2023-08-21 - 2023-08-25
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 6f0c6d15-0f69-422a-bef8-c32e3c1fed4c
- alternative location
- https://www.ppig.org/files/2023-PPIG-34th-mccabe.pdf
- date added to LUP
- 2024-01-22 10:40:01
- date last changed
- 2024-01-23 09:28:08
@inproceedings{6f0c6d15-0f69-422a-bef8-c32e3c1fed4c, abstract = {{When interacting with other humans, we attempt to develop a shared understanding using various means. One such method is through our eyes: when someone is looking at something, we understand that their attention is focused on that object. In this work, we present the results of an eye-tracking study built upon the Progger tool, in which we used additional code highlighting in an attempt to influence the gaze behaviour of a human programmer, thereby focusing their attention. We found that though it is possible to draw attention towards areas of particular interest to the compiler, this has no apparent effect upon performance when confronted with a bug-finding code comprehension task. We conclude that although this strategy may be of use in the future when attempting to humanise the process of programming, further research is required to establish the efficacy of such interventions.}}, author = {{McCabe, Alan and Niehorster, Diederick C and Söderberg, Emma}}, booktitle = {{Proceedings of the 34th Annual Workshop of the Psychology of Programming Interest Group}}, language = {{eng}}, publisher = {{Psychology of Programming Interest Group}}, title = {{Influencing Code Reading Through Beacons: an Eye-Tracking Study}}, url = {{https://www.ppig.org/files/2023-PPIG-34th-mccabe.pdf}}, year = {{2023}}, }