Human Response to Cognitive Workload
Context: This piece started as a question to a researcher in Psychology. There's a topic I've been trying to find research results for some time. I call it "(Human) Cognitive Response to Workload". There is a bunch of qualitative data for "Physiological response to Workload" available - e.g. US Navy for "stokers" working in different levels of heat. I found Prof. Lisanne Bainbridge in the UK. She's retired now. Her field is 'mental load' and couldn't point me at research in the area or help me properly phrase my question. She pointed me at Penny Sanderston, now Prof. at University of Queensland. What I'm interested in is any information to apply to Software Developers and other Knowledge workers: In the short, medium & longer term (day, week, year) how do you maximise cognitive output? What roles do sleep, recreation & holidays play in 'recharging' cognitive abilities? For different levels (degrees of difficul...