Abstract
The neural correlates of software programming skills have been the target of an increasing number of studies in the past few years. Those studies focused on error-monitoring during software code inspection. Others have studied task-related cognitive load as measured by distinct neurophysiological measures. Most studies addressed only syntax errors (shallow level of code monitoring). However, a recent functional MRI (fMRI) study suggested a pivotal role of the insula during error-monitoring when challenging deep-level analysis of code inspection was required. This raised the hypothesis that the insula is causally involved in deep error-monitoring. To confirm this hypothesis, we carried out a new fMRI study where participants performed a deep source-code comprehension task that included error-monitoring to detect bugs in the code. The generality of our paradigm was enhanced by comparison with a variety of tasks related to text reading and bugless source-code understanding. Healthy adult programmers (N = 21) participated in this 3T fMRI experiment. The activation maps evoked by error-related events confirmed significant activations in the insula [p(Bonferroni) < 0.05]. Importantly, a posterior-to-anterior causality shift was observed concerning the role of the insula: in the absence of error, causal directions were mainly bottom-up, whereas, in their presence, the strong causal top-down effects from frontal regions, in particular, the anterior cingulate cortex was observed.
Highlights
Software programming, in particular, the task of code reviewing is a complex and relatively recent human activities, involving the integration of mathematical skills, recursive thinking, language processing, and error-monitoring (Fedorenko et al, 2019)
We performed an functional MRI (fMRI) experiment to study for the first time the task dependence of effective connectivity of the insula as evoked by a software bug detection task within the error-monitoring network
The main hypothesis of this study was that the insula has a pivotal role during error-monitoring processes, in particular, in relation to software bug detection
Summary
In particular, the task of code reviewing is a complex and relatively recent human activities, involving the integration of mathematical skills, recursive thinking, language processing, and error-monitoring (Fedorenko et al, 2019). The study of these skills from a neuroscientific perspective has received an increasing interest. The important cognitive component of programming related to software bug detection that in neuroscientific terms can be seen as an errormonitoring process has not been considered previously In this line, the studies that work on this topic focus on syntax errors (Siegmund et al, 2014b) or comparisons with other wellknown human skills (e.g., math and reading) (Hassenfeld et al, 2020) but did not address code inspection in the context of bug detection moments. We aimed to investigate the general neural correlates of decision-making during source-code understanding and, in particular, the role of the insula, from a causal perspective, in the network of errormonitoring, during bug detection
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