Cognitive architectures: a way forward for the psychology of programming

Abstract

Programming language and library designers often debate the usability of particular design choices. These choices may impact many developers, yet scientific evidence for them is rarely provided. Cognitive models of program comprehension have existed for over thirty years, but the lack of quantitative (operational) validations for their internal components limits their utility for usability studies. To ease the burden of quantifying these existing models, we recommend using the ACT-R cognitive architecture - a simulation framework for psychological models. In this paper, we review the history of cognitive modeling in the psychology of programming. We provide an overview of the ACT-R cognitive architecture, and show how it could be used to fill in the gaps of an existing, yet incomplete, quantitative model (the Cognitive Complexity Metric). Lastly, we discuss the potential benefits and challenges associated with building a comprehensive cognitive model on top of a cognitive architecture.