Investigating Cognitive Demands in Software Testing Activities: An EEG-Based Experimental Study

This replication package accompanies the paper "Investigating Cognitive Demands in Software Testing Activities: An EEG-Based Experimental Study." It is distributed as two complementary archives: EEG_EDF_data.zip – Contains the raw EEG recordings collected during the experiment in European Data Format (EDF). Experimental-study.zip – Contains the documentation and supplementary artifacts required to understand and reproduce the study, including the README with execution instructions, the MATLAB preprocessing and analysis scripts, experimental materials (e.g., consent forms and questionnaires), the Phorphet tool, and other supporting resources used throughout the experiment and analyses. Together, these two archives provide all materials necessary to reproduce the analyses and results reported in the paper. Experiment Overview The study investigates the cognitive demands associated with different software testing activities using electroencephalography (EEG). EEG signals were collected under controlled laboratory conditions using standardized acquisition procedures to ensure consistency across participants and recording sessions. The controlled experiment involved eight professional software testers performing four representative software testing activities: Test automation code comprehension; Syntax error identification; Logic error identification; and Test case design. Each participant completed five recording sessions, corresponding to one baseline condition and four experimental tasks: IBOE – Initial Baseline (Eyes Open): resting-state EEG recording with eyes open, used as the reference for neural activity normalization. BL01 – Test automation code comprehension. BL02 – Syntax error identification. BL03 – Logic error identification. BL04 – Test case design. File Naming Convention for the raw EEG recording: EEG recordings are organized by participant and session using the following naming convention: [ParticipantID]_[SessionCode].edf where: ParticipantID is a three-digit participant identifier (e.g., 001, 002, ..., 008); SessionCode corresponds to one of the five recording sessions (IBOE, BL01, BL02, BL03, or BL04). Examples: 001_IBOE.edf – Baseline (eyes-open) recording for participant 001. 001_BL01.edf – Test automation code comprehension recording for participant 001. All recordings are provided in European Data Format (EDF), a widely adopted open standard for storing physiological and EEG signals. Dataset Summary Participants: 8 professional software testers Recording sessions: 5 per participant Total EEG files: 40 EDF files File format: .edf (European Data Format) EEG acquisition: 64 channels sampled at 1000 Hz Potential Uses The dataset can be used for: Research on cognitive processes during software engineering activities; EEG signal processing and preprocessing studies; Feature extraction and machine learning applications; Classification of cognitive states from EEG signals; and Replication, validation, or extension of the analyses reported in the accompanying paper. Ethical Considerations The study was approved by the appropriate institutional ethics committee. All participants provided informed consent prior to participation. The dataset has been fully anonymized, and no personally identifiable information is included in this repository.