Neurophysiological Impact of Software Design Processes on Software Developers

Conference paper
First Online:
Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNCS, volume 10285)

Abstract

Software development often leads to failed implementations resulting from several factors related to individual reactions to software design. Some design metrics give software developers guidelines and heuristics for use in software design. Furthermore, many metrics have been created to measure outcomes in terms of “code quality.” However, these guidelines and metrics have been shown only to have a weak relationship and are poorly implemented. This study takes a new approach using tools from cognitive neuroscience to examine the cognitive load and arousal level placed on software engineers while working with different software designs. Specifically, we use electroencephalography (EEG) and skin conductance (SCR) to examine cognitive and emotional reactions to software structure. We propose to examine whether modular design affects levels of cognitive load and arousal. Our findings open the door for future research that combines software engineering and cognitive neuroscience. The potential implications of this study extend beyond optimal ways to structure software to leading the software engineering field to study individual cognition and arousal as a central component in successful software development. This opens a wide array of potential studies in the software engineering field.

Keywords

Cognitive load and performance Emotion Electroencephalography Augmented cognition Arousal Software engineering 
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Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Shidler College of BusinessUniversity of Hawaii at ManoaHonoluluUSA
  2. 2.Department of Computer ScienceThe University of AucklandAucklandNew Zealand

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