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 difficulty) of cognitive task (or skilled manual task) what are the optimum work rates and duty cycles? (ratio of work/rest)

Related areas are Rates of Error & 'tiredness' effect on maximum cognitive task.
[James T. Reason has very good work on "Human Error" and "Organisational Error". His work is used extensively in Aviation and Nuclear safety. He originated "the swiss-cheese" model of accidents.]

Response to Cognitive Work Load - Huh?

Another related question I've been trying to even discover the correct name for over the last 10 years.
I can't believe something so fundamental to I.T. and the knowledge economy could go unstudied.

I frame it as "Human cognitive response to workload".

There is a whole bunch of data on "human physiological response to workload" - like the US Navy and how long stokers can work at various temperatures (and humidity?).

This goes to the heart of computing/programming - being able to solve difficult problems, and managing/reducing defects/errors. In my career, I got very tired of bosses attempting to get more work done by "forced marches". 80 hour weeks aren't more productive - they just insure a very high defect rate and amazing amounts of rework.

The best I have been able to find is Dr Lisanne Bainbridge and her work on "mental load".

What I wanted to discover is:

• that for each individual there is an optimal number of 'brain work' hours per week
• the effect of physical & mental fatigue and sleep deprivation on 'brain work' output, degree of difficulty tasks and error rate.
• the recovery time for strenuous (mental) effort - working 50, 75 and 100 hours / week requires recovery, but how much?

If you, gentle reader, have any leads/pointers on this I really appreciate it :-)

Even if someone knows what the field is called or refer me to the peoplethat do know.