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arXiv:2302.06376cs.SE

The Effect of Perceptual Load on Performance within IDE in People with ADHD Symptoms

Vseslav Kasatskii, Agnia Sergeyuk, Anastasiia Serova, Sergey Titov, Timofey Bryksin

Abstract

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.

arXiv comments
20 pages, 4 figures
Journal reference
Augmented Cognition. HCII 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 14019. Springer, Cham
DOI
doi:10.1007/978-3-031-35017-7_9
Subjects
cs.SESoftware Engineering cs.HCHuman-Computer Interaction

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Linked by 3 identifiable commenters in 3 comments across 2 threads, from Jul 2023 to Dec 2024.

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Discussed in comments2 threads

  1. Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it? 1 comment

    • There is some low-key ableism in comments like this. Not all of us have our productivity enhanced by videogame shit happening in our field of vision while we're trying to code, or by software tools attempting to get ahead of us and do or check our work while we're typing. These…

      bitwizeView on HNParent context

  2. Effect of perceptual load on performance within IDE in people with ADHD symptoms 2 comments

    • https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.06376 – non-paywalled paper https://github.com/JetBrains-Research/adhd-study – experimental data

      ansgriView on HNParent context

    • You can find the paper on arxiv.org if you're interested. https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.06376 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2302.06376.pdf

      bbrksView on HNParent context

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