scholarly journals Through (Tracking) Their Eyes: Abstraction and Complexity in Program Comprehension

2022 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Philipp Kather ◽  
Rodrigo Duran ◽  
Jan Vahrenhold

Previous studies on writing and understanding programs presented evidence that programmers beyond a novice stage utilize plans or plan-like structures. Other studies on code composition showed that learners have difficulties with writing, reading, and debugging code where interacting plans are merged into a short piece of code. In this article, we focus on the question of how different code-composition strategies and the familiarity with code affect program comprehension on a more abstract, i.e., algorithmic level. Using an eye-tracking setup, we explored how advanced students comprehend programs and their underlying algorithms written in either a merged or abutted (sequenced) composition of code blocks of varying familiarity. The effects of familiarity and code composition were studied both isolated and in combination. Our analysis of the quantitative data adds to our understanding of the behavior reported in previous studies and the effects of plans and their composition on the programs’ difficulty. Using this data along with retrospective interviews, we analyze students’ reading patterns and provide support that subjects were able to form mental models of program execution during task performance. Furthermore, our results suggest that subjects are able to retrieve and create schemata when the program is composed of familiar templates, which may improve their performance; we found indicators for a higher element-interactivity for programs with a merged code composition compared to abutted code composition.

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott R. Hinze ◽  
Beth A. Fisher ◽  
Jennifer Wiley

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 345-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantina Ioannou ◽  
Indira Nurdiani ◽  
Andrea Burattin ◽  
Barbara Weber

Author(s):  
Jessica Schnabel

Mind wandering, or “daydreaming,” is a shift in the contents of a thought away from a task and/or event in the external environment, to self-generated thoughts and feelings. This research seeks to test the reliability of eye tracking as an objective of measure mind wandering using the Wandering Eye Paradigm, as well as examine the relationships between mind wandering and individual characteristics. Fifty participants will be recruited for two appointments a day apart, on each day on each day completing two eye tracking sessions following a moving target. In this task, participants will be instructed to press the space bar if they feel they are mind wandering, and then answer three questions about their episode content. Questionnaires measuring mind wandering, procrastination, mindfulness, creativity and personality (in particular conscientiousness) will be completed between eye tracking sessions. By comparing the eye tracking data in the period prior to the spacebar press we can determine quantifiable indicators of the onset and duration of mind wandering episodes by analyzing gaze location in relation to the target location. It has been hypothesized that severity of task performance failures (losing track of the target) should correlate with the “depth” of the mind wandering episode content. Additionally, we expect the frequency of mind wandering episodes to correlate with individual characteristics, and that these measures will be consistent across trials. This research would provide a novel objective way to identify and measure mind wandering, and would help further advance the understanding of its behavioral and subjective dimensions.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
João Vitor Macedo Romera ◽  
Rafael Nobre Orsi ◽  
Rodrigo Filev Maia ◽  
Carlos Eduardo Thomaz

This work investigates reading patterns based on effects of the Meares-Irlen Syndrome (SMI), a visual-perception deficit that affects indirectly our cognitive system. The most common symptoms related to SMI in reading tasks are visual stress, sensation of moving letters and distortions in the text. These effects have been computationally simulated here and using eye-tracking information of a number of participants we have been able to linearly classify each effects with high accuracy.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Koops van ’t Jagt ◽  
John Hoeks ◽  
Gillis J. Dorleijn ◽  
Petra Hendriks

This study describes two eye tracking experiments investigating the processing of poetry with and without enjambments. In Experiment 1, poetic fragments with authentic prospective (syntactically incomplete) or retrospective (syntactically complete) enjambments were investigated; in Experiment 2, enjambments were created — for the purpose of the experiment — from poetry that did not originally contain enjambments. We hypothesized that the layout of the text in poetic fragments would affect the degree to which integrative processes take place: in case of prospective enjambments, the syntactic incompleteness may preclude integration at the end of the line (before going to the next line), whereas retrospective enjambments may cause considerable re-interpretation at the next line. We indeed found significant differences in reading patterns between prose and poetry, poetry with and without enjambment, and poetry with prospective and retrospective enjambment. We interpret these results as favoring a dynamic model of language processing, where the amount and type of integration is determined by syntactic (in)completeness, semantic (in)completeness, but also the physical layout of the text.


Ars Aeterna ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 18-38
Author(s):  
Francesca Raffi

Abstract The present paper aims to present significant results stemming from the FACS (Full Access to Cultural Spaces) project, launched in 2014 by the University of Macerata and concluded in 2016. In particular, this paper reports on stages one and two of the FACS project which aimed first to explore the state of the art of universal access services across a large variety of museums in Italy and nine other EU countries. Based on the first stage, an analysis of some of the most significant data obtained from a questionnaire sent out to over 1,200 European museums will be presented, with a special focus on multilingual devices and access services for the sensory impaired. The first stage was followed by an eye-tracking study on an Italian museum, Turin’s Museo Nazionale del Cinema (National Cinema Museum), aimed at evaluating visitors’ experience, attitudes and patterns of fruition through a test with a portable eye tracker (Tobii Pro Glasses 2, 50 Hz). Based on this second stage, the fruition of information panels by museum visitors at the Museo Nazionale del Cinema will be explored, specifically focusing on reading patterns and behaviours.


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cumhur TURK ◽  
Huseyin KALKAN ◽  
Kasim KIROGLU ◽  
Nazan OCAK ISKELELI

<p>The purpose of this study is to determine the mental models of elementary school students on seasons and to analyze how these models change in terms of grade levels. The study was conducted with 294 students (5<sup>th</sup>, 6<sup>th</sup>, 7<sup>th</sup> and 8<sup>th</sup> graders) studying in an elementary school of Turkey’s Black Sea Region. Qualitative and quantitative data collection methods were used in the study. The students first were asked 3 open ended questions (one of them was a drawing) in order to determine their mental models on seasons. Following this, the students took an achievement test on seasons that consisted of 4 multiple questions. Quantitative data were analyzed by SPSS 20.0 while the qualitative data were analyzed by the researchers by using content analysis technique. The results of the study showed that the students construct the formation of seasons in various ways in their minds. However, differently from the literature, the presence of some new mental models was found. For a full understanding of the seasons, the necessity of a set of pre-learnings has been recommended. It will be useful to design basic activities based on hands-on and learning by doing which will enable the most effective learning and to put this in the textbooks in the most suitable way. Additionally tangible physical-scale hands-on models, 3D simulation modeling and planetarium environment should be used in students’ education about formation of seasons.</p>


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