What is going on in the minds of software developers?

Computer science professor Sven Apel had software developers analyzed in an MRI code. The result could change the design of programming languages.

Sven Apel, computer science professor at Saarland University, looks developers in the head at work. The goal is to find out what software developers are concerned with when dealing with program code.

The team used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for the investigations. With this imaging method, physiological functions inside the body can be displayed using the methods of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The study participants performed MRI tasks. To complete the tasks, they had to understand an extract from a program code. After a short break, the subjects should examine part of a code for syntax errors. In this case, it is a routine task, not an understanding question. The investigation was carried out several times. The team then separated the images of the comprehension tests from those of the routine tasks.

The left half of the brain is particularly active

The results clearly show that the analysis of lines of code primarily activates the left half of the brain, which is responsible, among other things, for understanding speech. Apel and his team saw no activity in the area of mathematical or logical thinking. This in turn could have consequences for the design of programming languages as well as for training, according to the Saarland University in its press release.

Apel and his colleagues want to use the results and investigate how the programming understanding differs between experts and beginners. The coming investigations will focus on whether the two groups read and interpret the present code in different ways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3iV1-9PJtI

Further information can be found on the official website of the Saarland Informatics Campus (SIC) and in the announcement.