LOCATION: TEL Auditorium 1, Ernst-Reuter-Platz 7, 20th floor

Date/Time: 03.11.2014, 14:15-15:00

SPEAKER: Sebastian Lohmeier (TU Berlin)

ABSTRACT:

For a Master's thesis in Computer Science, an eye-tracking experiment was conducted during which programmers read Java source code with a novel language feature called anaphors. Anaphors are inspired by cognitive linguistics and can be used within method bodies. They allow programmers to use a type name to refer to a value of a prior expression of that type. Anaphors reduce the need for local variable declarations.

The experiment used eye tracking measures and comprehension questions and focused on the comprehensibility of indirect forms of anaphors. The talk introduces anaphors and details design and results of the experiment.