[thaw13579]

These seem like good rules to follow, but there's nothing to suggest that they reduce cognitive load. To make that claim, you need experiments testing brain function or at least people's behavior...

[thaw13579]

To follow up with a point of comparison, this is the kind of work that can make a claim about how cognition and coding are related:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/%7Eckaestne/pdf/icse14_fmri.pdf