In this paper, we describe the research on how perceptual load can affect programming performance in people with symptoms of Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). We asked developers to complete the Barkley Deficits in Executive Functioning Scale, which indicates the presence and severity levels of ADHD symptoms. After that, participants solved mentally active programming tasks (coding) and monotonous ones (debugging) in the integrated development environment in high perceptual load modes (visually noisy) and low perceptual load modes (visually clear). The development environment was augmented with the plugin we wrote to track efficiency metrics, i.e. time, speed, and activity. We found that the perceptual load does affect programmers' efficiency. For mentally active tasks, the time of inserting the first character was shorter and the overall speed was higher in the low perceptual load mode. For monotonous tasks, the total time for the solution was less for the low perceptual load mode. Also, we found that the effect of perceptual load on programmers' efficiency differs between those with and without ADHD symptoms. This effect has a specificity: depending on efficiency measures and ADHD symptoms, one or another level of perceptual load might be beneficial. Our findings support the idea of behavioral assessment of users for providing appropriate accommodation for the workforce with special needs.

翻译：本文研究视觉负荷如何影响伴有注意缺陷/多动障碍（ADHD）症状个体的编程表现。我们要求开发者完成Barkley执行功能缺陷量表评估，该量表可指示ADHD症状的存在及其严重程度。随后，参与者在集成开发环境中分别完成高认知激活型编程任务（编码）与单调型任务（调试），并处于高视觉负荷模式（视觉杂乱）与低视觉负荷模式（视觉清晰）下。开发环境配置了我们编写的插件，用于追踪效率指标（包括时间、速度与活动量）。研究发现视觉负荷确实影响程序员的效率：在认知激活型任务中，低视觉负荷模式下首次字符插入时间更短且整体速度更高；在单调型任务中，低视觉负荷模式的解决方案总耗时更少。同时，我们发现视觉负荷对程序员效率的影响在伴有与不伴有ADHD症状的群体间存在差异。这种影响具有特异性——根据效率指标与ADHD症状的不同，特定水平的视觉负荷可能产生促进作用。我们的发现支持通过用户行为评估为特殊需求劳动力提供差异化适配方案的思路。