Application of the heuristic-systematic model to computer code trustworthiness: The influence of reputation and transparency

Figures & data

Table 1. Readability degradations

1. Misuse of case	(a) For packages
	(b) For classes and interfaces
	(c) For methods and variables
	(d) For constants
2. Misuse of braces	(a) Line break before an opening brace
	(b) No line break after an opening brace
	(c) No line break before a closing brace
	(d) Line break after a brace that precedes an else
	(e) Missing a space before an opening or closing brace
3. Misuse of indentation	(a) Improper indentation given code position
	(b) Inconsistent indentation
4. Improper line length and line wrapping	(a) Unnecessarily exceeds character limit without wrapping
	(b) Missing blank lines to indicate logical grouping
	(c) Use of too many and unnecessary blank lines

Table 2. Organization degradations

1. Poor grouping of methods	(a) Any form
2. Misuse of declarations	(a) Import statements used improperly
	(b) More than one variable per line
	(c) Variables not initialized as soon as possible
	(d) Overuse of public instance and class variables
3. Ambiguous control flow	(a) Improper, unnecessary, or confusing use of “break” or “continue”
	(b) Unnecessary or confusing nesting of blocks
	(c) Multiple function calls or unnecessarily grouping block on one line
	(d) Switch statement does not have a default case
	(e) Switch statement with no “break” does not comment explicit continuation to next statement group
4. Improper exception handling	(a) Any form
5. Statements unnecessarily require additional review	(a) Compressed if statements
	(b) Unusual return statements
	(c) Multiple classes
	(d) Inconsistent blocks

Figure 1. Example stimuli in trust in code testbed.

Figure 2 Trustworthiness assessment plots of readability and organization by source for study 1.

Table 3. Study 1 and 2 trustworthiness scores and time means and standard errors

	Unknown source			Reputable source
	Low readability	Medium readability	High readability	Low readability	Medium readability	High readability
Study 1
Low organization	4.189 (0.214)	2.887 (0.201)	4.868 (0.230)	4.887 (0.227)	4.642 (0.222)	5.547 (0.197)
	160.952 (13.278)	205.761 (19.908)	280.629 (31.978)	183.245 (15.098)	263.488 (28.936)	156.244 (13.595)
Medium organization	3.811 (0.240)	4.358 (0.214)	4.509 (0.243)	4.094 (0.216)	4.925 (0.232)	5.245 (0.201)
	197.715 (20.536)	150.229 (12.902)	123.268 (7.988)	197.570 (16.015)	166.291 (18.413)	180.451 (11.678)
High organization	3.717 (0.219)	3.623 (0.239)	4.792 (0.233)	3.962 (0.242)	3.868 (0.210)	4.151 (0.271)
	225.355 (25.725)	116.916 (11.664)	117.987 (9.485)	276.441 (26.313)	240.180 (26.548)	166.715 (13.283)
Study 2
Low organization	4.507 (0.143)	4.370 (0.165)	5.397 (0.122)	5.219 (0.155)	5.219 (0.147)	5.260 (0.173)
	90.154 (11.518)	113.241 (20.004)	128.767 (18.365)	84.533 (13.272)	96.863 (11.650)	107.185 (20.796)
Medium organization	4.69 (0.178)	4.411 (0.169)	4.849 (0.194)	5.027 (0.149)	5.466 (0.124)	5.151 (0.152)
	115.136 (30.795)	97.589 (20.053)	67.106 (9.533)	94.857 (11.928)	81.079 (12.614)	73.118 (7.679)
High organization	4.151 (0.177)	4.507 (0.178)	4.548 (0.155)	4.932 (0.213)	4.726 (0.164)	4.699 (0.193)
	109.205 (16.439)	129.008 (29.133)	56.424 (7.762)	152.667 (59.755)	78.660 (10.605)	77.014 (12.812)

Note:

Bold numbers are trustworthiness scores, non-bold numbers are time in seconds, and standard errors are in parentheses.

Figure 3 Time plots of readability and organization by source for study 1.

Figure 4. Trustworthiness assessment plots of readability and organization by source for study 2.

Figure 5. Time plots of readability by organization for study 2.