Dr. Christopher Parnin
Assistant Professor
NC State University
EBII-3270

Bionic Programmers of Tomorrow

Studies of personal activity tracking devices and applications, such as the Fitbit and the Moves app, demonstrate that these devices and applications can be effective in encouraging individuals to adopt more active lifestyles. Similarly, we wish to study how understanding cognitive neuroscience, and access to low-cost, widely available, high-fidelity biometric sensors can be used to more directly observe a software developer's cognitive and affective (emotional) processes. Technologies like EEG (electroencephalography) and eye tracking can be used to look at cognitive processes such as program comprehension and code writing with extremely fine temporal resolution. Data from EDA (electrodermal activity) and HRV (heart rate variability) sensors can reveal the software developer's internal emotional states, for example identifying when the developer is confused, frustrated, surprised, stressed, fatigued, or in a highly productive flow state. These affective states can be correlated with code quality, software complexity, development productivity, and effective communication and may even be harnessed for expressing new programs.