An empirical investigation into the design of auditory cues to enhance computer program comprehension |
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| Authors: | Andreas Stefik Christopher Hundhausen Robert Patterson |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Department of Computer Science, USA;2. Washington State University, Human-centered Environments for Learning and Programming (HELP) Lab, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, USA;3. US Air Force Research Laboratory, USA;1. Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX, UK;2. Division of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Imperial College, London, UK;1. GIPSA-lab, Département Parole & Cognition, CNRS & Grenoble Université, France;2. Université Laval, Département de Réhabilitation, Centre de Recherche de l''Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Québec, Québec, Canada;3. Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music, McGill University, Montreal, Canada;4. School of Communication Sciences & Disorders, McGill University, Montreal, Canada;5. Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, USA;1. Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, Victoria Hospital, London Health Sciences Centre, Ontario, Canada;2. Program in Evidence-based Care, Cancer Care Ontario, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada;1. Minneapolis VA Health Care System and Department of Urology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA;2. Duke University, Duke Clinical Research Institute and Division of Urology, Durham, NC, USA;1. Telecommunication Engineering Department, University of Jaén, Alfonso X el Sabio, 28, 23700 Linares, Jaén, Spain;2. Music Technology Group (MTG), Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Roc Boronat, 138, 08018 Barcelona, Spain |
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| Abstract: | Decades of research have led to notable improvements in the representations used to aid human comprehension of computer programs. Much of this research has focused on visual representations, which leaves open the question of how best to design auditory representations of computer programs. While this question has particular relevance for visually impaired programmers, sighted programmers might also benefit from enhanced auditory representations of their programs. In order to investigate this question empirically, first, we introduce artifact encoding, a novel approach to rigorously measuring the comprehensibility of auditory representations of computer programs. Using this approach as a foundation, we present an experimental study that compared the comprehensibility of two alternative auditory program representations: one with lexical scoping cues that convey the nesting level of program statements, and another without such scoping cues. The results of our first experiment validate both artifact encoding and the scoping cues we used. To see whether auditory cues validated through our paradigm can aid program comprehension in a realistic task scenario, we experimentally compared programmers' ability to debug programs using three alternative environments: (1) an auditory execution environment with our empirically derived auditory cues; (2) an auditory execution environment with the current state-of-the-art auditory cues generated by a screen reader running on top of Microsoft Visual Studio; and (3) a visual version of the execution environment. The results of our second experiment showed that our comprehensible auditory cues are significantly better than the state-of-the-art, affording human performance approaching the effectiveness of visual representations within the statistical margin of error. This research contributes a novel methodology and foundational empirical data that can guide the design of effective auditory representations of computer programs. |
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