In today’s technologically driven world, there is a need to better understand the ways that common computer malfunctions affect computer users. These malfunctions may have measurable influences on computer user’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses. An experiment was conducted where participants conducted a series of web search tasks while wearing functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and galvanic skin response sensors. Two computer malfunctions were introduced during the sessions which had the potential to influence correlates of user trust and suspicion. Surveys were given after each session to measure user’s perceived emotional state, cognitive load, and perceived trust. Results suggest that fNIRS can be used to measure the different cognitive and emotional responses associated with computer malfunctions. These cognitive and emotional changes were correlated with users’ self-report levels of suspicion and trust, and they in turn suggest future work that further explores the capability of fNIRS for the measurement of user experience during human-computer interactions.

We describe preliminary research that attempts to quantify the level of trust that exists in typical interactions between human users and their computer systems. We describe the cognitive and emotional states that are correlated to trust, and we present preliminary experiments using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and electroencephalography (EEG) to measure these user states. Our long term goal is to run experiments that manipulate users' level of trust in their interactions with the computer and to measure these effects via non-invasive brain measurement.

Over the past year we have changed our CS 1 course from a standard Pascal-based, procedural programming course into one that emphasizes C++ and object-oriented programming (OOP). While our experience to date indicates that this was a good decision for both our students and our department, the decision did not come easy. We struggled long and hard with many, if not most, of the questions and issues that have come to be associated with teaching OOP to undergraduates. This paper recounts our struggles, and presents our responses to the more serious of the pedagogical questions that we considered. In hindsight, many of the reasons we came up with for not using OOP in CS1 are seen to reflect our lack of understanding of the paradigm, our fear of the language, and our past experience teaching Pascal and the procedural paradigm. Furthermore, we believe that our reservations (which appear to be quite common) stemmed from a growing body of misleading OOP folklore that is contrary to our experience and that this paper attempts to dispel.

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