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：本文描述了感知负荷如何影响注意力缺陷/多动障碍（ADHD）症状个体编程表现的研究。我们要求开发者完成巴克利执行功能缺陷量表评估，该量表可指示ADHD症状的存在与否及其严重程度。随后，参与者需要在集成开发环境中分别完成高感知负荷模式（视觉嘈杂）和低感知负荷模式（视觉清晰）下的认知活跃型编程任务（编码）与单调型任务（调试）。我们开发了用于追踪效率指标（即时间、速度和活跃度）的插件来增强开发环境。研究发现，感知负荷确实会影响程序员的效率。在认知活跃型任务中，低感知负荷模式下首次字符插入时间更短，整体速度更高；在单调型任务中，低感知负荷模式的任务总耗时更少。此外，我们发现感知负荷对程序员效率的影响在有无ADHD症状个体间存在差异，且具有特异性：根据效率指标和ADHD症状的不同，某种特定水平的感知负荷可能产生有利影响。本研究结果支持通过行为评估为具有特殊需求的劳动力群体提供适当适配措施的观点。