A Theory of Program Comprehension—Joining Vision Science and Program Comprehension. Gu�h�neuc, Y. International Journal of Software Science and Computational Intelligence (IJSSCI), 1(2):54–72, IGI Global, April-June, 2009. 18 pages.
A Theory of Program Comprehension—Joining Vision Science and Program Comprehension [pdf]Paper  abstract   bibtex   
There exists an extensive literature on vision science, on the one hand, and on program comprehension, on the other hand. However, these two domains of research have been so far rather disjoint. Indeed, several cognitive theories have been proposed to explain program comprehension. These theories explain the processes taking place in the software engi- neers' minds when they understand programs. They explain how software engineers process available information to perform their tasks but not how software engineers acquire this information. Vision science provides ex- planations on the processes used by people to acquire visual information from their environment. Joining vision science and program comprehen- sion provides a more comprehensive theoretical framework to explain facts on program comprehension, to predict new facts, and to frame experiments. We join theories in vision science and in program comprehension; the resulting theory is consistent with facts on program comprehension and helps in predicting new facts, in devising experiments, and in putting certain program comprehension concepts in perspective.

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