The DOI matches its Crossref record; 72 of the 82 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Stimulus structures and mental representations in expert comprehension of computer programs
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“This is consistent with previous findings dating back to FORTRAN and COBOL programming [Pennington 1987], where programmers briefly shown small code snippets could best answer questions about control flow compared to data-or logic-flow.”
From Grounded Copilot: How Programmers Interact with Code-Generating Models (2023) · cites this paper as [Pennington 1987]
In the citing paper
“This is consistent with previous findings dating back to FORTRAN and COBOL programming [Pennington 1987], where programmers briefly shown small code snippets could best answer questions about control flow compared to data-or logic-flow.”
From Grounded Copilot: How Programmers Interact with Code-Generating Models (2023) · cites this paper as Pennington 1987
Citations
Cites
Axten, N., Newell, A., & Simon, H. A. (1973) · Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews · doi:10.2307/2063712 · Cited by 6,886
Proceedings of the 19th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Pujol, J. M., Delgado, J., Ramon Sangüesa, A., & Flache, A. (2005) · International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence · Cited by 5,771
Toward a model of text comprehension and production.
Kintsch, W., & van Dijk, T. A. (1978) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.85.5.363 · Cited by 5,298
Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1983) · Cited by 5,190
SCRIPTS, PLANS, GOALS, AND UNDERSTANDING
Schank, R. C., & Abelson, R. P. (1988) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-1-4832-1446-7.50019-4 · Cited by 4,544
Chase, W. G., & Simon, H. A. (1973) · Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1016/0010-0285(73)90004-2 · Cited by 4,479 · cited 1×
“First, well-known empirical results across a wide range of problem-solving domains, such as chess (e.g., Chase & Simon, 1973a, 1973b), GO (Reitman, 1976), bridge (Engle & Bukstel, 1978), music composition (Halpern & Bower, 1982; Sloboda, 1976), and computer programming (McKeithen et al., 1981;…”
Solso, R. L., & Chase, W. G. (1974) · The American Journal of Psychology · doi:10.2307/1421395 · Cited by 2,134
Remembrance of things parsed: Story structure and recall
Mandler, J. M., & Johnson, N. S. (1977) · Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1016/0010-0285(77)90006-8 · Cited by 2,085
Rumelhart, D. E. (1975) · Representation and Understanding · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-108550-6.50013-6 · Cited by 1,671
Michelene, T. H., Glaser, R. A., & Rees, E. T. (1981) · Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) · Cited by 1,529
Research works printed but not linked: 4
- Hayes, 1977, Psychological differences among problem isomorphs, Vol. 2
- Pennington, 1985, Cognitive components of expertise in computer programming: A review of the literature, Psychological Documents, 15
- Rumelhardt, 1980, A reply to Black and Wilensky, Cognitive Science, 4, 313
- Stein, 1979, An analysis of story comprehension in elementary school children, Vol. 2
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Items 501–526 of 526
Hsu, S. H., & Wang, S.-L. (1999) · Journal of the Chinese Institute of Industrial Engineers · doi:10.1080/10170669.1999.10432684
A Theory of Program Comprehension
Guéhéneuc, Y. (2012) · IGI Global eBooks · doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-0261-8.ch020
Koskinen, J. (2013) · The Open Software Engineering Journal · doi:10.2174/1874107x01004010039
Dillon, E., Williams, K. L., Fuller, S., Djapa, E., Dina, A., Wilridge, M., & Rogers, C. (2022) · International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI) · doi:10.1109/csci58124.2022.00356
Effect of Individual Schema on Visual Programming Performance
Gorla, N. (1998) · Journal of Computer Information Systems · doi:10.1080/08874417.1998.11647327
Students' Program Comprehension Processes in a Large Code Base
Shah, A., Tong, T., Tomson, E., Shi, S., Griswold, W. G., & Raj, A. G. S. (2025) · IEEE International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC) · doi:10.1109/icpc66645.2025.00026
A Human Study of Automatically Generated Decompiler Annotations
Yang, Y., Grandel, S., Lacomis, J., Schwartz, E. J., Vasilescu, B., Goues, C. L., & Leach, K. (2025) · International Conference on Dependable Systems & Networks/Proceedings · doi:10.1109/dsn64029.2025.00026
Computing Education’s Superbug: Interrogating the Computer-Mind Metaphors
Tenenberg, J. (2025) · ACM Transactions on Computing Education · doi:10.1145/3769856
Dillon, E., Ordóñez, P., Hasan, U., Owoeye, O. N., & Dharmale, S. (2025) · IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE) · doi:10.1109/fie63693.2025.11328626
Shahedi, K., Khouzam, M., Li, H., Lamothe, M., & Khomh, F. (2025) · IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE) · doi:10.1109/ase63991.2025.00286 · Cited by 1
Utilizing anatomical information for signal detection in functional magnetic resonance imaging
Peitek, N., Brechmann, A., Tabelow, K., & Dickhaus, T. (2026) · F1000Research · doi:10.12688/f1000research.166549.2
Modeling Code Understandability
Kushwaha, V. (2026) · Innovations in Software Engineering Conference (ISEC) · doi:10.1145/3796563.3796585
How to systematically and quantifiably remove meaning?
Astrom, F. P., & Hintze, A. (2026) · Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence · doi:10.3389/frai.2026.1783410
How Does Cognitive Capability and Personality Influence Problem-Solving in Coding Interview Puzzles?
Hidellaarachchi, D., Baltes, S., & Grundy, J. (2026) · International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE) · doi:10.1145/3794860.3794893
(In)Comprehensible Input and Explicit Instruction: A New Model for Programming Language Acquisition
Zabner, D., Henderson, T. S., & Vasquez, A. (2026) · ACM Transactions on Computing Education · doi:10.1145/3828720
Eye-Tracking Insights into the Effects of Type Annotations and Identifier Naming
Alznauer, N., Peitek, N., Abdelsalam, Y., Bergum, A., Wyrich, M., & Apel, S. (2026) · IEEE International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC) · doi:10.1145/3794763.3794801
Grasping AI Reliance in Program Comprehension and Coding through the AIRELI Persona Taxonomy
Alakmeh, T., Anderson, N. B., Jackson, V., Pereira, G. V., Akırmak, Ü., Estey, A., Prikladnicki, R., van der Hoek, A., Storey, M., & Fritz, T. (2026) · IEEE International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC) · doi:10.1145/3794763.3794804
Huang, S. C.-F., Chen, Z. H., Lin, Y., & Yeh, M. K. ‐. (2026) · Educational Technology Research and Development · doi:10.1007/s11423-026-10684-1 · Cited by 1
Planning on Paper: Problem Decomposition with Diagrams in Introductory Computing
Vadaparty, A., Hayatpur, D., Raj, A. G. S., Porter, L., & Zingaro, D. (2026) · ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research (ICER) · doi:10.1145/3765964.3811651
Improving code completion interpretability with concept-level intervention
Fan, K., Shen, Z., Li, Y.-X., Chen, X., Zhuang, Y., Ge, J., & Luo, B. (2026) · Information and Software Technology · doi:10.1016/j.infsof.2026.108309
Developing schema for open source programmers’ information-seeking
Sharif, K. Y., & Buckley, J. (2008) · International Symposium on Information Technology · doi:10.1109/itsim.2008.4631611
Identifying beacons in Grasshopper: Revealing visual clues to support program comprehension
Haddur, A., Çekmiş, A., Kuyucu, M., & İnce, G. (2026) · International Journal of Architectural Computing · doi:10.1177/14780771261499582
Beyond Syntax and Tracing: A Multidimensional Diagnostic Framework for Novice Code Comprehension
Cavalcanti, V., & Andrade, W. L. (2026) · Anais do ... Simpósio Brasileiro de Informática na Educação/Anais do Simpósio Brasileiro de Informática na Educação · doi:10.5753/sbie.2026.26889
Linking the Effect of Typographical Style to the Evolvabililty of Software
Mohan, A., & Gold, N. (2003)
Metadata
- Authors
- Pennington, N.
- Affiliations
- University of Chicago (US)
- Corresponding author
- Pennington, Nancy
- Venue
- Cognitive Psychology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1987-07
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 295-341
- ISSN
- 0010-0285 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2154671002
- Cited by
- 526
- References
- 82
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 17
- FWCI
- 32.83
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cognitive Psychology (publishedVersion)
- Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Research
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Teaching and Learning Programming
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Visual and Cognitive Learning Processes
- Keywords
- program comprehension, mental representation, programming knowledge, control flow, functional relationships, goal hierarchy, expert programmers, task goals
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review