In software development, where integration of diverse tools and artifacts is widespread, the issue of trust in software—whether developed in-house or by others—becomes paramount. This trust is crucial for software reuse and hinges on reliability, safety, and effectiveness. Yet, developers may either overtrust, ignoring potential flaws, as seen in the Heartbleed vulnerability case, or undertrust, such as in their reluctance to adopt machine-generated code despite its proven quality. Despite the importance, research on how developers perceive software trustworthiness and its impact on their cognitive processes is limited. Factors like age and gender are known to influence trust, suggesting a need for a deeper investigation into these aspects. Our research seeks to fill this gap by examining how trustworthiness perceptions affect developers' cognitive processes and software engineering (SE) outcomes, emphasizing the roles of age and gender. Through controlled studies and tools like eye tracking and neuroimaging, we aim to gain insights into the cognitive dynamics of software trust.

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• AI or Ally? Understanding Student Reliance on GitHub Copilot and Human Peers Through Eye Tracking, George Salib and Zohreh Sharafi, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE), 2026 -- Link
• Exploring the Effects of Urgency and Reputation in Code Review: An Eye-Tracking Study. Sara Yabesi, Mahta Amini, Jelena Ristic, and Zohreh Sharafi. In the proceeding of 32th International Conference in Program Comprehension (ICPC 2024) -- Link
• Trustworthiness Perceptions in Code Review: An Eye-tracking Study. Ian Bertram, Jack Hong, Yu Huang, Westley Weimer, and Zohreh Sharafi. In the proceeding of ACM International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement Emerging result (ESEM 2020) -- Link

Creative ideation and its adaptive value in reacting to new events are critical to advancing scientific and technological innovation. Software development involves problem-solving, which inherently requires creativity. Yet, the available research on creativity, particularly in software engineering, is fragmented and limited. In addition, there is a need for a consensus on the degree to which creativity is essential in software engineering tasks and how it can be effectively integrated into the development process. This project aims to empirically evaluate and comprehend the impact of creativity on developers’ cognitive processes during the execution of diverse software engineering tasks. The principal objectives that have been set forth for the proposed research projects are twofold: Firstly, to explore the influence of creativity on the performance and outcome of developers, and secondly, to examine the extent to which human factors, such as gender and native language, play a role in the impact of creativity on software engineering tasks. By combining the traditional psychometric approach of using creative thinking test scores with analyzing attention parameters measured through eye-tracking methodology, we aim to understand the creative thinking process for software engineering tasks comprehensively. In addition, we favor biological objective measures collected by neuroimaging to provide insights into the cognitive processes that underlie various software engineering activities and to complement and enhance the data collected. Our compound approach has the potential to capture the interplay between the participants’ creativity level, cognitive load, and the outcome

Related articles:

• Creative Minds at the Keyboard: Eye-Tracking Insights into How Developers Think and Code. Mahta Amini, Yahya Lafhal, and Zohreh Sharafi, 18th Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE 2026) Research Track. -- Link
• Attention to Innovation: Linking Developer Gaze and Coding Approaches. Yahya Lafhal, Zohreh Sharafi, and Mahta Amini, Conference Paper 34th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC 2026), Early Research Achievements (ERA). -- Link
• Coding with a Creative Twist: Investigating the Link Between Creativity Scores and problem-solving Strategies. Mahta Amini, Jay A. Olson, and Zohreh Sharafi. To appear in the proceeding of the 46th International Conference in Software Engineering - New Ideas and Emerging Results (ICSE-NIER 2024) -- Link
• Innovating Coding: Evaluating the Impact of Innovative Thinking in Programmings, Anthonia Njoku, Mahta Amini, and Zohreh Sharafi, To appear in the proceeding of 32th International Conference in Program Comprehension - Early research track (ICPC-ERA 2024) -- Link

Autonomous coding agents are increasingly participating in software development by generating repository-level pull requests that must be reviewed, discussed, and integrated by human teams. This project studies how AI agents reshape collaborative software engineering workflows, including integration outcomes, review communication, task allocation, and developer trust. By analyzing real-world pull requests and human-agent interaction patterns, we aim to better understand the socio-technical impact of coding agents and support more effective, transparent, and trustworthy human-AI collaboration in software engineering.

Related articles:

• When Code Authors Are Agents: A Large-Scale Study of Human-Agent Collaboration in Pull Requests. Anthonia Oluchukwu Njoku, Zohreh Sharafi, and Foutse Khomh. AIware 2026 Main Track. -- Link