Article

Effects of display blurring on the behavior of novices and experts during program debugging

Authors:

Roman Bednarik,

Markku TukiainenAuthors Info & Claims

CHI EA '05: CHI '05 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Pages 1204 - 1207

https://doi.org/10.1145/1056808.1056877

Published: 02 April 2005 Publication History

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Abstract

The Restricted Focus Viewer (RFV) relates a small part of an otherwise blurred display to the focus of visual attention. A user controls which part of the screen is in focus by using a computer mouse. The RFV tool records these movements. Recently, some studies used the RFV to investigate the cognitive behavior of users and some others have even enhanced the tool for research of usability issues.We report on an eye-tracking study where the effects of RFV's display blurring on the visual attention allocation of 18 novice and expert programmers were investigated. We replicated a previous RFV-based study and analyzed attention switching and fixation durations reported by an eye tracker. Our results indicate that the blurring interferes with the strategies possessed by experts and has an effect on fixation duration: however, we found that debugging performance was preserved. We discuss possible reasons and implications.

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Grabinger LHauser FWolff CMottok J(2024)On Eye Tracking in Software EngineeringSN Computer Science10.1007/s42979-024-03045-35:6Online publication date: 26-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s42979-024-03045-3
AKÇAY AALTUN A(2023)Öznitelik Belirleme Yöntemleriyle Farklı Türde Hata Ayıklamada Önemli Göz Hareket Metriklerinin BelirlenmesiDetermining Important Eye Movement Metrics in Different Types of Debugging with Feature Selection MethodsGazi Üniversitesi Gazi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi10.17152/gefad.119909643:2(757-784)Online publication date: 2-Sep-2023
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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

CHI EA '05: CHI '05 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2005

1358 pages

ISBN:1595930027

DOI:10.1145/1056808

Conference Chair:
Gerrit van der Veer
Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands
,
Program Chair:
Carolyn Gale
Stanford University, Stanford, CA

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 02 April 2005

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CHI05: CHI 2005 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2 - 7, 2005

OR, Portland, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 6,164 of 23,696 submissions, 26%

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Cited By

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Grabinger LHauser FWolff CMottok J(2024)On Eye Tracking in Software EngineeringSN Computer Science10.1007/s42979-024-03045-35:6Online publication date: 26-Jul-2024
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https://doi.org/10.17152/gefad.1199096
Yang SPoonawala AJiang TSchneider B(2023)Can Synchronous Code Editing and Awareness Tools Support Remote Tutoring? Effects on Learning and TeachingProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36101777:CSCW2(1-30)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610177
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Gorski PMoller SWiefling SIacono L(2022)“I just looked for the solution!”On Integrating Security-Relevant Information in Non-Security API Documentation to Support Secure Coding PracticesIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2021.309417148:9(3467-3484)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2022
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Talsma RBarendsen ESmetsers S(2020)Analyzing the influence of block highlighting on beginning programmers' reading behavior using eye trackingProceedings of the 9th Computer Science Education Research Conference10.1145/3442481.3442505(1-10)Online publication date: 19-Oct-2020
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Emhardt SKok EJarodzka HBrand‐Gruwel SDrumm Cvan Gog T(2020)How Experts Adapt Their Gaze Behavior When Modeling a Task to NovicesCognitive Science10.1111/cogs.1289344:9Online publication date: 14-Sep-2020
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Sharafi ZSharif BGuéhéneuc YBegel ABednarik RCrosby M(2020)A practical guide on conducting eye tracking studies in software engineeringEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-020-09829-4Online publication date: 12-Jun-2020
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Obaidellah UAl Haek MCheng P(2018)A Survey on the Usage of Eye-Tracking in Computer ProgrammingACM Computing Surveys10.1145/314590451:1(1-58)Online publication date: 10-Jan-2018
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