ICSE 2025
Sat 26 April - Sun 4 May 2025 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Fri 2 May 2025 15:15 - 15:30 at 204 - Program Comprehension 4 Chair(s): Simone Scalabrino

Expert programmers are more effective at coding activities, but the reasons for this remain elusive. Accordingly, recent research has used neuroimaging such as fMRI to analyze how expert programmers might think as they perform coding activities. Those experiments have all involved specific programming tasks (i.e., comprehension), but have been unable to detect systematic differences based on coding experience. By using tasks, however, those studies may limit the number and type of brain networks involved. In Cognitive Neuroscience, researchers commonly analyze resting-state data, in which participants’ brain activity is recorded as they lay idle in the scanner. The brain’s functional organization is plastic, and can change with experience. These changes can be measured at rest, making this a suitable data type for studying how programming activities affect neural organization over time. In this paper, we analyzed the resting state scans from 150 participants, 96 of whom were programmers. We found increased connectivity in programmers between brain regions involved in language, math, and the temporal attention. Non-programmers demonstrated more connectivity with regions involved in social and emotional cognition. We found that as years of programming experience increases, connectivity decreases between two regions associated with visual processing during reading and articulation, respectively.

Fri 2 May

Displayed time zone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) change

14:00 - 15:30
Program Comprehension 4Research Track at 204
Chair(s): Simone Scalabrino University of Molise
14:00
15m
Talk
Decoding the Issue Resolution Process In Practice via Issue Report Analysis: A Case Study of FirefoxArtifact-FunctionalArtifact-AvailableArtifact-Reusable
Research Track
Antu Saha William & Mary, Oscar Chaparro William & Mary
Pre-print
14:15
15m
Talk
Preserving Privacy in Software Composition Analysis: A Study of Technical Solutions and Enhancements
Research Track
Huaijin Wang Ohio State University, Zhibo Liu Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Yanbo Dai The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Shuai Wang Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Qiyi Tang Tencent Security Keen Lab, Sen Nie Tencent Security Keen Lab, Shi Wu Tencent Security Keen Lab
14:30
15m
Talk
UML is Back. Or is it? Investigating the Past, Present, and Future of UML in Open Source Software
Research Track
Joseph Romeo Software Institute - USI, Lugano, Switzerland, Marco Raglianti Software Institute - USI, Lugano, Csaba Nagy , Michele Lanza Software Institute - USI, Lugano
Pre-print
14:45
15m
Talk
Understanding the Response to Open-Source Dependency Abandonment in the npm EcosystemAward Winner
Research Track
Courtney Miller Carnegie Mellon University, Mahmoud Jahanshahi University of Tennessee, Audris Mockus University of Tennessee, Bogdan Vasilescu Raj Reddy Associate Professor of Software and Societal Systems, Carnegie Mellon University, USA, Christian Kästner Carnegie Mellon University
15:00
15m
Talk
Understanding Compiler Bugs in Real Development
Research Track
Hao Zhong Shanghai Jiao Tong University
15:15
15m
Talk
Studying Programmers Without Programming: Investigating Expertise Using Resting State fMRI
Research Track
Zachary Karas Vanderbilt University, Benjamin Gold Vanderbilt University, Violet Zhou University of Michigan, Noah Reardon University of Michigan, Thad Polk University of Michigan, Catie Chang Vanderbilt University, Yu Huang Vanderbilt University