{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,4]],"date-time":"2026-05-04T03:41:43Z","timestamp":1777866103126,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":72,"publisher":"Springer Science and Business Media LLC","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,12]],"date-time":"2026-03-12T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1773273600000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,12]],"date-time":"2026-03-12T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1773273600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100007511","name":"Universidad Rey Juan Carlos","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100007511","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["link.springer.com"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Empir Software Eng"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,7]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>\n                    Understanding how software systems evolve over time is a key challenge in software engineering. While traditional tools like GitHub offer detailed access to project history, their interface can be fragmented and cognitively demanding. Immersive environments, by contrast, offer new opportunities to visualize software evolution in ways that leverage spatial reasoning and embodied interaction. In this paper, we present a controlled experiment comparing an immersive virtual reality (VR) visualization with a conventional GitHub-based interface for analyzing software evolution across releases. Using the\n                    <jats:italic>BabiaXR<\/jats:italic>\n                    framework and the city metaphor, we built parallel environments where 32 participants explored two real-world Java projects and completed a set of analytical tasks related to structure, activity, and system core identification. Our findings show that participants in VR were not more accurate on average, but engaged more deeply with the data, took more time, and often relied on spatial cues to formulate richer insights. In contrast, participants using the on-screen interface completed tasks faster but occasionally reverted to external tools or skipped complex questions. Qualitative analysis revealed that immersive exploration supported deliberate reasoning, especially in open-ended and structural tasks. Notably, prior experience with VR or software visualization had no significant impact on performance, underscoring the accessibility of immersive tools even for novice users. These results suggest that immersive visualizations may not universally outperform traditional interfaces, but they offer unique cognitive benefits for specific types of software comprehension tasks. We discuss the implications for visualization design and outline future directions involving hybrid analytical environments and extended longitudinal studies.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1007\/s10664-026-10836-0","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,12]],"date-time":"2026-03-12T12:34:39Z","timestamp":1773318879000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Immersion vs. familiarity: A controlled experiment of software evolution visualization in virtual reality"],"prefix":"10.1007","volume":"31","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5454-7808","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"David","family":"Moreno-Lumbreras","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Sergio","family":"Montes-Leon","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Jesus M.","family":"Gonzalez-Barahona","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Gregorio","family":"Robles","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,12]]},"reference":[{"key":"10836_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Amar, R.A., Eagan, J.R., Stasko, J.T.: Low-level components of analytic activity in information visualization. IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization, 2005. INFOVIS 2005. pp. 111\u2013117 (2005)","DOI":"10.1109\/INFVIS.2005.1532136"},{"issue":"3\u20134","key":"10836_CR2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"180","DOI":"10.1016\/S1093-3263(99)00029-7","volume":"17","author":"A Anderson","year":"1999","unstructured":"Anderson A, Weng Z (1999) Vrdd: applying virtual reality visualization to protein docking and design. J Mol Graph Model 17(3\u20134):180\u2013186","journal-title":"J Mol Graph Model"},{"issue":"1","key":"10836_CR3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"536","DOI":"10.1109\/TVCG.2019.2934803","volume":"26","author":"A Batch","year":"2019","unstructured":"Batch A, Cunningham A, Cordeil M, Elmqvist N, Dwyer T, Thomas BH, Marriott K (2019) There is no spoon: Evaluating performance, space use, and presence with expert domain users in immersive analytics. IEEE Trans Visual Comput Graphics 26(1):536\u2013546","journal-title":"IEEE Trans Visual Comput Graphics"},{"key":"10836_CR4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bayyari, A., Tudoreanu, M.E.: The impact of immersive virtual reality displays on the understanding of data visualization. In: Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology, VRST \u201906, p. 368\u2013371. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA (2006). doi: 10.1145\/1180495.1180570","DOI":"10.1145\/1180495.1180570"},{"key":"10836_CR5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"36","DOI":"10.1109\/MC.2007.257","volume":"40","author":"D Bowman","year":"2007","unstructured":"Bowman D, McMahan R (2007) Virtual reality: How much immersion is enough? Computer 40:36\u201343. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1109\/MC.2007.257","journal-title":"Computer"},{"issue":"5","key":"10836_CR6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"62","DOI":"10.1145\/229459.229467","volume":"39","author":"S Bryson","year":"1996","unstructured":"Bryson S (1996) Virtual reality in scientific visualization. Commun ACM 39(5):62\u201371","journal-title":"Commun ACM"},{"key":"10836_CR7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"2130","DOI":"10.1109\/TVCG.2012.216","volume":"18","author":"JJ Chen","year":"2012","unstructured":"Chen JJ, Cai H, Auchus AP, Laidlaw DH (2012) Effects of stereo and screen size on the legibility of three-dimensional streamtube visualization. IEEE Trans Visual Comput Graphics 18:2130\u20132139","journal-title":"IEEE Trans Visual Comput Graphics"},{"key":"10836_CR8","unstructured":"Cleveland, W.S.: The Elements of Graphing Data. Hobart Press (1994)"},{"key":"10836_CR9","unstructured":"Cohen, J.: Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (1988)"},{"key":"10836_CR10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Cruz-Neira, C., Sandin, D.J., DeFanti, T.A.: Surround-screen projection-based virtual reality: the design and implementation of the cave. In: Proceedings of the 20th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, pp. 135\u2013142 (1993)","DOI":"10.1145\/166117.166134"},{"key":"10836_CR11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Demiralp, C., Jackson, C., Karelitz, D., Zhang, S., Laidlaw, D.: Cave and fishtank virtual-reality displays: A qualitative and quantitative comparison. IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics 12, 323\u201330 (2006) 10.1109\/TVCG.2006.42","DOI":"10.1109\/TVCG.2006.42"},{"issue":"1","key":"10836_CR12","first-page":"93","volume":"93","author":"C Dismuke","year":"2006","unstructured":"Dismuke C, Lindrooth R (2006) Ordinary least squares. Methods and designs for outcomes research 93(1):93\u2013104","journal-title":"Methods and designs for outcomes research"},{"key":"10836_CR13","unstructured":"Djorgovski, S., Hut, P., Knop, R., Longo, G., McMillan, S., Vesperini, E., Donalek, C., Graham, M., Mahabal, A., Sauer, F., et al.: The mica experiment: Astrophysics in virtual worlds. arXiv preprint arXiv:1301.6808 (2013)"},{"key":"10836_CR14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Donalek, C., Djorgovski, S.G., Cioc, A., Wang, A., Zhang, J., Lawler, E., Yeh, S., Mahabal, A., Graham, M., Drake, A., Davidoff, S., Norris, J.S., Longo, G.: Immersive and collaborative data visualization using virtual reality platforms. In: 2014 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data), pp. 609\u2013614 (2014) 10.1109\/BigData.2014.7004282","DOI":"10.1109\/BigData.2014.7004282"},{"key":"10836_CR15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Drogemuller, A., Cunningham, A., Walsh, J., Cordeil, M., Ross, W., Thomas, B.: Evaluating navigation techniques for 3d graph visualizations in virtual reality. In: 2018 International Symposium on Big Data Visual and Immersive Analytics (BDVA), pp. 1\u201310 (2018) 10.1109\/BDVA.2018.8533895","DOI":"10.1109\/BDVA.2018.8533895"},{"key":"10836_CR16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Due\u00f1as, S., Cosentino, V., Gonzalez-Barahona, J.M., del Castillo San Felix, A., Izquierdo-Cortazar, D., Ca\u00f1as-D\u00edaz, L., P\u00e9rez Garc\u00eda-Plaza, A.: Grimoirelab: A toolset for software development analytics. PeerJ Computer Science (2021)","DOI":"10.7717\/peerj-cs.601"},{"key":"10836_CR17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Elliott, A., Peiris, B., Parnin, C.: Virtual reality in software engineering: Affordances, applications, and challenges. In: 2015 IEEE\/ACM 37th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering, vol. 2, pp. 547\u2013550. IEEE (2015)","DOI":"10.1109\/ICSE.2015.191"},{"key":"10836_CR18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Fekete, J.D.: The infovis toolkit. In: IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization, pp. 167\u2013174. IEEE (2004)","DOI":"10.1109\/INFVIS.2004.64"},{"key":"10836_CR19","unstructured":"Few, S.: Show me the numbers. Analytics Pres (2004)"},{"key":"10836_CR20","volume-title":"Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis","author":"S Few","year":"2009","unstructured":"Few S (2009) Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis, 1st edn. Analytics Press, Oakland, CA, USA","edition":"1"},{"key":"10836_CR21","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"Friendly, M.: A Brief History of Data Visualization, pp. 15\u201356. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Heidelberg (2008) https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/978-3-540-33037-0_2","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-540-33037-0_2"},{"key":"10836_CR22","unstructured":"Friendly, M.: Milestones in the history of thematic cartography, statistical graphics, and data visualization (2008)"},{"key":"10836_CR23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Garc\u00eda-Hern\u00e1ndez, R.J., Anthes, C., Wiedemann, M., Kranzlm\u00fcller, D.: Perspectives for using virtual reality to extend visual data mining in information visualization. In: 2016 IEEE Aerospace Conference, pp. 1\u201311 (2016). DOI: 10.1109\/AERO.2016.7500608","DOI":"10.1109\/AERO.2016.7500608"},{"key":"10836_CR24","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"Heer J, Bostock M, Ogievetsky V (2010) A tour through the visualization zoo. Commun ACM 53(6):59\u201367. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/1743546.1743567. http:\/\/portal.acm.org\/citation.cfm?doid=1743546.1743567","DOI":"10.1145\/1743546.1743567"},{"key":"10836_CR25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Hoff, A., Gerling, L., Seidl, C.: Utilizing software architecture recovery to explore large-scale software systems in virtual reality. In: 2022 Working Conference on Software Visualization (VISSOFT), pp. 119\u2013130 (2022) 10.1109\/VISSOFT55257.2022.00020","DOI":"10.1109\/VISSOFT55257.2022.00020"},{"key":"10836_CR26","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jbi.2019.103102","volume":"90","author":"Z Ibrahim","year":"2019","unstructured":"Ibrahim Z, Money AG (2019) Computer mediated reality technologies: A conceptual framework and survey of the state of the art in healthcare intervention systems. J Biomed Inform 90:103102","journal-title":"J Biomed Inform"},{"key":"10836_CR27","unstructured":"Jackson, D., Gilbert, J.: WebGL 2.0 specification. Khronos Group Specification (2020)"},{"key":"10836_CR28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Jacob, R.J., Girouard, A., Hirshfield, L.M., Horn, M.S., Shaer, O., Solovey, E.T., Zigelbaum, J.: Reality-based interaction: a framework for post-wimp interfaces. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pp. 201\u2013210 (2008)","DOI":"10.1145\/1357054.1357089"},{"key":"10836_CR29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Jedlitschka, A., Pfahl, D.: Reporting guidelines for controlled experiments in software engineering. In: 2005 International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering, 2005, pp. 10 pp.- (2005) 10.1109\/ISESE.2005.1541818","DOI":"10.1109\/ISESE.2005.1541818"},{"key":"10836_CR30","unstructured":"Jones, B., Goregaokar, M.: WebXR device API. W3C Working Draft (2020)"},{"issue":"2","key":"10836_CR31","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"77","DOI":"10.1002\/smr.344","volume":"19","author":"H Kagdi","year":"2007","unstructured":"Kagdi H, Collard ML, Maletic JI (2007) A survey and taxonomy of approaches for mining software repositories in the context of software evolution. J Softw Maint Evol Res Pract 19(2):77\u2013131","journal-title":"J Softw Maint Evol Res Pract"},{"key":"10836_CR32","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"Kaiser, P., Vasak, P., Suorineni, F., Thibodeau, D.: New dimensions in seismic data interpretation with 3-d virtual reality visualisation for burst-prone mines. pp. 33\u201345 (2005) https:\/\/doi.org\/10.36487\/ACG_repo\/574_0.3","DOI":"10.36487\/ACG_repo\/574_0.3"},{"key":"10836_CR33","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"Kobayashi, K., Kamimura, M., Yano, K., Kato, K., Matsuo, A (2013) Sarf map: Visualizing software architecture from feature and layer viewpoints. In: 2013 21st International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC), pp. 43\u201352. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1109\/ICPC.2013.6613832","DOI":"10.1109\/ICPC.2013.6613832"},{"key":"10836_CR34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Laha, B., Bowman, D., Socha, J.: Effects of vr system fidelity on analyzing isosurface visualization of volume datasets. IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics 20, 513\u201322 (2014) 10.1109\/TVCG.2014.20","DOI":"10.1109\/TVCG.2014.20"},{"key":"10836_CR35","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"108","DOI":"10.1007\/BFb0017737","volume-title":"Software Process Technology","author":"MM Lehman","year":"1996","unstructured":"Lehman MM (1996) Laws of software evolution revisited. In: Montangero C (ed) Software Process Technology. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 108\u2013124"},{"issue":"12","key":"10836_CR36","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1373","DOI":"10.1007\/s00371-013-0892-3","volume":"30","author":"S Liu","year":"2014","unstructured":"Liu S, Cui W, Wu Y, Liu M (2014) A survey on information visualization: recent advances and challenges. Vis Comput 30(12):1373\u20131393","journal-title":"Vis Comput"},{"key":"10836_CR37","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Maletic, J., Leigh, J., Marcus, A., Dunlap, G.: Visualizing object-oriented software in virtual reality. In: Proceedings 9th International Workshop on Program Comprehension. IWPC 2001, pp. 26\u201335 (2001) 10.1109\/WPC.2001.921711","DOI":"10.1109\/WPC.2001.921711"},{"issue":"2","key":"10836_CR38","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"126","DOI":"10.1109\/TSE.2004.1265817","volume":"30","author":"T Mens","year":"2004","unstructured":"Mens T, Tourw\u00e9 T (2004) A survey of software refactoring. IEEE Trans Software Eng 30(2):126\u2013139","journal-title":"IEEE Trans Software Eng"},{"key":"10836_CR39","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Merino, L., Fuchs, J., Blumenschein, M., Anslow, C., Ghafari, M., Nierstrasz, O., Behrisch, M., Keim, D.A.: On the impact of the medium in the effectiveness of 3d software visualizations. In: 2017 IEEE Working Conference on Software Visualization (VISSOFT), pp. 11\u201321 (2017) 10.1109\/VISSOFT.2017.17","DOI":"10.1109\/VISSOFT.2017.17"},{"key":"10836_CR40","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Merino, L., Ghafari, M., Anslow, C., Nierstrasz, O.: CityVR: Gameful software visualization. In: 2017 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME), pp. 633\u2013637 (2017) 10.1109\/ICSME.2017.70","DOI":"10.1109\/ICSME.2017.70"},{"key":"10836_CR41","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Millais, P., Jones, S.L., Kelly, R.: Exploring data in virtual reality: Comparisons with 2d data visualizations. In: Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA \u201918, p. 1\u20136. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA (2018) doi: 10.1145\/3170427.3188537","DOI":"10.1145\/3170427.3188537"},{"key":"10836_CR42","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Millais, P., Jones, S.L., Kelly, R.: Exploring data in virtual reality: Comparisons with 2d data visualizations. In: Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1\u20136 (2018)","DOI":"10.1145\/3170427.3188537"},{"key":"10836_CR43","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Misiak, M., Schreiber, A., Fuhrmann, A., Zur, S., Seider, D., Nafeie, L.: IslandViz: A tool for visualizing modular software systems in virtual reality. In: 2018 IEEE Working Conference on Software Visualization (VISSOFT), pp. 112\u2013116 (2018). DOI: 10.1109\/VISSOFT.2018.00020","DOI":"10.1109\/VISSOFT.2018.00020"},{"key":"10836_CR44","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Moreno-Lumbreras D, Gonzalez-Barahona JM, Robles G (2023) Babiaxr: Facilitating experiments about xr data visualization. SoftwareX 24:101587. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.softx.2023.101587. https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S2352711023002832","DOI":"10.1016\/j.softx.2023.101587"},{"key":"10836_CR45","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"Moreno-Lumbreras, D., Gonzalez-Barahona, J.M., Robles, G.: Diving into software evolution: Virtual reality vs. on-screen (2024) https:\/\/doi.org\/10.5281\/zenodo.13662379","DOI":"10.5281\/zenodo.13662379"},{"key":"10836_CR46","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.infsof.2022.107064","volume":"153","author":"D Moreno-Lumbreras","year":"2023","unstructured":"Moreno-Lumbreras D, Minelli R, Villaverde A, Gonzalez-Barahona JM, Lanza M (2023) Codecity: A comparison of on-screen and virtual reality. Inf Softw Technol 153:107064","journal-title":"Inf Softw Technol"},{"issue":"2","key":"10836_CR47","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"42","DOI":"10.1007\/s10664-023-10435-3","volume":"29","author":"D Moreno-Lumbreras","year":"2024","unstructured":"Moreno-Lumbreras D, Robles G, Izquierdo-Cort\u00e1zar D, Gonzalez-Barahona JM (2024) Software development metrics: to vr or not to vr. Empir Softw Eng 29(2):42","journal-title":"Empir Softw Eng"},{"key":"10836_CR48","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1201\/b17511","volume-title":"Visualization analysis and design","author":"T Munzner","year":"2014","unstructured":"Munzner T (2014) Visualization analysis and design. CRC Press, Boca Raton"},{"key":"10836_CR49","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Natephra, W., Motamedi, A.: Live data visualization of iot sensors using augmented reality (ar) and bim. In: 36th International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (ISARC 2019) (2019)","DOI":"10.22260\/ISARC2019\/0084"},{"key":"10836_CR50","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"Olshannikova, E., Ometov, A., Koucheryavy, Y., Olsson, T.: Visualizing big data with augmented and virtual reality: challenges and research agenda. Journal of Big Data 2 (2015). https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1186\/s40537-015-0031-2","DOI":"10.1186\/s40537-015-0031-2"},{"key":"10836_CR51","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Pfahler, F., Minelli, R., Nagy, C., Lanza, M.: Visualizing evolving software cities. In: 2020 Working Conference on Software Visualization (VISSOFT), pp. 22\u201326 (2020) 10.1109\/VISSOFT51673.2020.00007","DOI":"10.1109\/VISSOFT51673.2020.00007"},{"key":"10836_CR52","unstructured":"Playfair, W.: A Letter on Our Agricultural Distresses, Their Causes and Remedies: Accompanied with Tables and Copper-plate Charts, Shewing and Comparing the Prices of Wheat, Bread and Labour from 1565 to 1821... 23431. W. Sams (1822)"},{"issue":"5","key":"10836_CR53","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"886","DOI":"10.1109\/TVCG.2012.163","volume":"19","author":"ED Ragan","year":"2013","unstructured":"Ragan ED, Kopper R, Schuchardt P, Bowman DA (2013) Studying the effects of stereo, head tracking, and field of regard on a small-scale spatial judgment task. IEEE Trans Visual Comput Graphics 19(5):886\u2013896. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1109\/TVCG.2012.163","journal-title":"IEEE Trans Visual Comput Graphics"},{"key":"10836_CR54","unstructured":"Raja, D., Bowman, D., Lucas, J., North, C.: Exploring the benefits of immersion in abstract information visualization. In: Proc. Immersive Projection Technology Workshop, vol. 61, p. 69 (2004)"},{"issue":"1","key":"10836_CR55","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"19","DOI":"10.1145\/3437479.3437483","volume":"46","author":"P Ralph","year":"2021","unstructured":"Ralph P (2021) ACM SIGSOFT empirical standards released. SIGSOFT Softw Eng Notes 46(1):19. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3437479.3437483","journal-title":"SIGSOFT Softw Eng Notes"},{"key":"10836_CR56","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"R\u00fcdel, M.O., Ganser, J., Koschke, R.: A controlled experiment on spatial orientation in vr-based software cities. In: 2018 IEEE Working Conference on Software Visualization (VISSOFT), pp. 21\u201331 (2018) 10.1109\/VISSOFT.2018.00011","DOI":"10.1109\/VISSOFT.2018.00011"},{"issue":"4","key":"10836_CR57","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"253","DOI":"10.1002\/(SICI)1096-9942(1997)3:4<253::AID-TAPO3>3.0.CO;2-T","volume":"3","author":"D Roberts","year":"1997","unstructured":"Roberts D, Brant J, Johnson R (1997) A refactoring tool for smalltalk. Theory and Practice of Object systems 3(4):253\u2013263","journal-title":"Theory and Practice of Object systems"},{"key":"10836_CR58","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Romano, S., Capece, N., Erra, U., Scanniello, G., Lanza, M.: On the use of virtual reality in software visualization: The case of the city metaphor. Information and Software Technology 114, 92\u2013106 (2019) 10.1016\/j.infsof.2019.06.007","DOI":"10.1016\/j.infsof.2019.06.007"},{"key":"10836_CR59","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Rosenbaum, R., Bottleson, J., Liu, Z., Hamann, B.: Involve me and i will understand!-abstract data visualization in immersive environments. In: International Symposium on Visual Computing, pp. 530\u2013540. Springer (2011)","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-642-24028-7_49"},{"key":"10836_CR60","unstructured":"Saket, B., Endert, A., \u00c7agatay Demiralp: Data and task based effectiveness of basic visualizations. ArXiv abs\/1709.08546 (2017)"},{"key":"10836_CR61","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Schuemie, M., Straaten, P., Krijn, M., Mast, C.: Research on presence in virtual reality: A survey. Cyberpsychology and behavior : the impact of the Internet, multimedia and virtual reality on behavior and society 4, 183\u2013201 (2001) 10.1089\/109493101300117884","DOI":"10.1089\/109493101300117884"},{"key":"10836_CR62","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Sillito, J., Murphy, G.C., De Volder, K.: Questions programmers ask during software evolution tasks. In: Proceedings of the 14th ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering, SIGSOFT \u201906\/FSE-14, p. 23\u201334. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA (2006) 10.1145\/1181775.1181779","DOI":"10.1145\/1181775.1181779"},{"key":"10836_CR63","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Sinhabahu, N., Wimalaratne, P., Wijesiriwardana, C.: Secure codecity with evolution: Visualizing security vulnerability evolution of software systems. In: 2020 20th International Conference on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions (ICTer), pp. 1\u20132 (2020) 10.1109\/ICTer51097.2020.9325429","DOI":"10.1109\/ICTer51097.2020.9325429"},{"issue":"7","key":"10836_CR64","first-page":"668","volume":"1","author":"J Snow","year":"1856","unstructured":"Snow J (1856) On the mode of communication of cholera. Edinb Med J 1(7):668\u2013670","journal-title":"Edinb Med J"},{"key":"10836_CR65","volume-title":"The Visual Display of Quantitative Information","author":"ER Tufte","year":"2001","unstructured":"Tufte ER (2001) The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edn. Graphics Press, Cheshire, CT","edition":"2"},{"issue":"2","key":"10836_CR66","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"120","DOI":"10.1109\/TSE.2015.2467378","volume":"42","author":"S Vegas","year":"2016","unstructured":"Vegas S, Apa C, Juristo N (2016) Crossover designs in software engineering experiments: Benefits and perils. IEEE Trans Software Eng 42(2):120\u2013135. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1109\/TSE.2015.2467378","journal-title":"IEEE Trans Software Eng"},{"key":"10836_CR67","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Wettel, R., Lanza, M.: Visualizing software systems as cities. In: 2007 4th IEEE International Workshop on Visualizing Software for Understanding and Analysis, pp. 92\u201399 (2007) 10.1109\/VISSOF.2007.4290706","DOI":"10.1109\/VISSOF.2007.4290706"},{"key":"10836_CR68","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-642-29044-2","volume-title":"Experimentation in software engineering","author":"C Wohlin","year":"2012","unstructured":"Wohlin C, Runeson P, H\u00f6st M, Ohlsson MC, Regnell B, Wessl\u00e9n A (2012) Experimentation in software engineering. Springer Science & Business Media, Berlin"},{"key":"10836_CR69","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Yano, K., Matsuo, A.: Data access visualization for legacy application maintenance. In: 2017 IEEE 24th International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER), pp. 546\u2013550 (2017) 10.1109\/SANER.2017.7884671","DOI":"10.1109\/SANER.2017.7884671"},{"key":"10836_CR70","unstructured":"Yin, T.: Lizard: an extensible cyclomatic complexity analyzer. Astrophysics Source Code Library pp. ascl-1906 (2019)"},{"key":"10836_CR71","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Young, P., Munro, M.: Visualising software in virtual reality. In: Proceedings. 6th International Workshop on Program Comprehension. IWPC\u201998 (Cat. No.98TB100242), pp. 19\u201326 (1998) 10.1109\/WPC.1998.693276","DOI":"10.1109\/WPC.1998.693276"},{"key":"10836_CR72","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Zhang, S., Demiralp, C., Keefe, D., DaSilva, M., Laidlaw, D., Greenberg, B., Basser, P., Pierpaoli, C., Chiocca, E., Deisboeck, T.: An immersive virtual environment for dt-mri volume visualization applications: a case study. In: Proceedings Visualization, 2001. VIS \u201901., pp. 437\u2013584 (2001) 10.1109\/VISUAL.2001.964545","DOI":"10.1109\/VISUAL.2001.964545"}],"container-title":["Empirical Software Engineering"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/10.1007\/s10664-026-10836-0.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s10664-026-10836-0","content-type":"text\/html","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/10.1007\/s10664-026-10836-0.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,30]],"date-time":"2026-04-30T08:01:24Z","timestamp":1777536084000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/10.1007\/s10664-026-10836-0"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,12]]},"references-count":72,"journal-issue":{"issue":"4","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,7]]}},"alternative-id":["10836"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s10664-026-10836-0","relation":{},"ISSN":["1382-3256","1573-7616"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1382-3256","type":"print"},{"value":"1573-7616","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,12]]},"assertion":[{"value":"25 June 2025","order":1,"name":"received","label":"Received","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"15 February 2026","order":2,"name":"accepted","label":"Accepted","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"12 March 2026","order":3,"name":"first_online","label":"First Online","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"order":1,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Declarations"}},{"value":"The study did not involve the collection of personal data. The broader project,\n                      BabiaXR\n                      , was approved by the Ethics Committee of Universidad Rey Juan Carlos under internal reference 1904202211422.","order":2,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Ethical Approval"}},{"value":"Participants were informed about the nature of the study and gave their verbal consent to participate. No personally identifiable data was collected.","order":3,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Informed Consent"}},{"value":"The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest relevant to this work.","order":4,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Conflicts of Interest"}},{"value":"Not applicable.","order":5,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Clinical Trial Number"}}],"article-number":"91"}}