research-article

Public Access

Simultaneous measurement of program comprehension with fMRI and eye tracking: a case study

Authors:

Johannes C. Hofmeister,

André BrechmannAuthors Info & Claims

ESEM '18: Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement

Article No.: 24, Pages 1 - 10

https://doi.org/10.1145/3239235.3240495

Published: 11 October 2018 Publication History

PDF eReader

Abstract

Background Researchers have recently started to validate decades-old program-comprehension models using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). While fMRI helps us to understand neural correlates of cognitive processes during program comprehension, its comparatively low temporal resolution (i.e., seconds) cannot capture fast cognitive subprocesses (i.e., milliseconds).

Aims To increase the explanatory power of fMRI measurement of programmers, we are exploring in this methodological paper the feasibility of adding simultaneous eye tracking to fMRI measurement. By developing a method to observe programmers with two complementary measures, we aim at obtaining a more comprehensive understanding of program comprehension.

Method We conducted a controlled fMRI experiment of 22 student participants with simultaneous eye tracking.

Results We have been able to successfully capture fMRI and eye-tracking data, although with limitations regarding partial data loss and spatial imprecision. The biggest issue that we experienced is the partial loss of data: for only 10 participants, we could collect a complete set of high-precision eye-tracking data. Since some participants of fMRI studies show excessive head motion, the proportion of full and high-quality data on fMRI and eye tracking is rather low. Still, the remaining data allowed us to confirm our prior hypothesis of semantic recall during program comprehension, which was not possible with fMRI alone.

Conclusions Simultaneous measurement of program comprehension with fMRI and eye tracking is promising, but with limitations. By adding simultaneous eye tracking to our fMRI study framework, we can conduct more fine-grained fMRI analyses, which in turn helps us to understand programmer behavior better.

References

[1]

Roman Bednarik and Markku Tukiainen. 2006. An Eye-Tracking Methodology for Characterizing Program Comprehension Processes. In Proc. Symposium on Eye Tracking Research & Applications (ETRA). ACM, 125--132.

Abstract

References

Cited By

Index Terms

Recommendations

Understanding understanding source code with functional magnetic resonance imaging

Measuring neural efficiency of program comprehension

Toward conjoint analysis of simultaneous eye-tracking and fMRI data for program-comprehension studies

Comments

Information

Published In

Sponsors

In-Cooperation

Publisher

Publication History

Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Funding Sources

Conference

Acceptance Rates

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View options

PDF

eReader

Login options

Full Access

Figures

Other

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media

Affiliations