The Psychology of Quality and More

C Style: Standards and Guidelines (contents)

CHAPTER 2 : Psychological Factors

PART 1 : BASICS

CHAPTER 2 : Psychological Factors

2.1 Pattern Recognition
2.2 Filtering
2.3 Habit
2.4 Redundancy
2.5 Cues and Context
2.6 Recognizing Basic features
2.7 Short Term, Working and Long Term memory
2.8 Chunking
2.9 The Rule of Seven
2.10 Context Switching
2.11 Modifying the image
2.12 Memorizing sounds
2.13 Eye focus
2.14 Eye movement
2.15 Looking ahead
2.16 Looking back
2.17 The subconscious is always right
2.18 Natural ambition
2.19 Summary

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2.15 Looking ahead

When we drive we look well ahead, so we can be ready for any hazard. Similarly, as we are reading, we tend to peek ahead to absorb the context ahead of the current reading point. If it is laid out nicely, and everything looks familiar, then we relax and read comfortably at our own rate. If, however, the text ahead looks dense or unfamiliar, we tense up and start to think negatively. We are more likely to misunderstand and make mistakes if things look difficult and we are expecting to err.

Thus, with the use of a consistent programming style, the reader is comforted simply by the 'look' of the code and can relax and concentrate on the current fragment.

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