Download Slide - Computer Science, Stony Brook University

Another Person’s Eye Gaze as a Cue
in Solving Programming Problems
Randy Stein
Susan Brennan
Stony Brook University
How can expertise be transferred?
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A graduate TA, on the phone, is trying to help
a first year computer science student debug
his homework assignment. No matter how
the TA tries, he cannot find the words to
express to the student how to diagnose a
problem. If only there were some way for the
student to actually see how the TA codes…
Using Eye Gaze
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Eye gaze can provide precise, moment-bymoment information about a collaborator’s
focus of attention
In collaborative computing eye gaze can be
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Instrumental
Informative
communicative
Goals
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Ultimate Goal: Can eye gaze be used to transfer
knowledge from experts to novices without them
being co-present?
First step: can knowledge be transferred via eye
gaze at all? Can experts use eye gaze to gain
knowledge from each other and solve problems
more quickly?
Next: can eye gaze be a useful tool when an expert
and novice are collaborating on a problem?
How does a partner’s eye gaze help?
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Eye gaze videos reveal two useful sources of
spatial information:
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Location of the bug
Where related code might be (an expert’s “slice”)
Location probably sufficient for simple bugs;
related code would be more important for
complex bugs requiring a trace