Beyond gaze: preliminary analysis of pupil dilation and blink rates in an fMRI study of program comprehension

Researchers have been employing psycho-physiological measures to better understand program comprehension, for example simultaneous fMRI and eye tracking to validate top-down comprehension models. In this paper, we argue that there is additional value in eye-tracking data beyond eye gaze: Pupil dilation and blink rates may offer insights into programmers' cognitive load. However, the fMRI environment may influence pupil dilation and blink rates, which would diminish their informative value. We conducted a preliminary analysis of pupil dilation and blink rates of an fMRI experiment with 22 student participants. We conclude from our preliminary analysis that the correction for our fMRI environment is challenging, but possible, such that we can use pupil dilation and blink rates to more reliably observe program comprehension.