We model the cognitive complexity reduction of a method as an optimization problem where the search space contains all sequences of Extract Method refactoring opportunities. We then propose a novel approach that searches for feasible code extractions allowing developers to apply them, all in an automated way. This will allow software developers to make informed decisions while reducing the complexity of their code. We evaluated our approach over 10 open-source software projects and was able to fix 78% of the 1,050 existing cognitive complexity issues reported by SonarQube. We finally discuss the limitations of the proposed approach and provide interesting findings and guidelines for developers.
