Mitigating disruptive effects of interruptions through training: What needs to be practiced?

Abstract

It is generally accepted that, with practice, people improve on most tasks. However, when tasks have multiple parts, it is not always clear what aspects of the tasks practice or training should focus on. This research explores the features that allow training to improve the ability to resume a task after an interruption, specifically focusing on task-specific versus general interruption/resumption-process mechanisms that could account for improved performance. Three experiments using multiple combinations of primary tasks and interruptions were conducted with undergraduate psychology students. The first experiment showed that for one primary and interruption task-pair, people were able to resume the primary task faster when they had previous practice with the interruption. The second experiment replicated this finding for two other sets of primary and interruption task-pairs. Finally, the third experiment showed that people were able to resume a primary task faster only when they had previous practice with that specific primary and interruption task-pair. Experience with other primary and interruption task-pairs, or practice on the primary task alone, did not facilitate resumption. This suggests that a critical component in resuming after an interruption is the relationship between two tasks. These findings are in line with a task-specific mechanism of resumption and incompatible with a general-process mechanism. These findings have practical implications for developing training programs and mitigation strategies to lessen the disruptive effects of interruptions which plague both our personal and professional environments.

Interruptions in the Real World: Examining the Role of Internal Versus External Interruptions in a Hospital Pharmacy

“…It could be that the ability to prepare for the interruption by creating a cue leads to a "cancelling" effect, trading off the benefits of a cue against the longer time away from the primary task. Consistent with this argument, an earlier study examining interruptions in an office setting did find a difference between external interruptions and internal interruptions, with external interruptions leading to more disruption (i.e., longer resumption lags) than internal interruptions (Cades, Trafton, Monk, 2011). The difference in findings may be due to features of the office environment studied.…”

“…The model predicts that the longer you are away from a task (i.e., the longer the interruption), the more difficult it will be to resume the task due to the lowered activation level of the primary task goal. This has been supported by several studies conducted in the laboratory (Cades, Trafton, & Monk, 2011;Hodgetts & Jones, 2006;Trafton, Altmann, Brock, & Mintz, 2003) According to the Memory for Goals theory, there are two factors that can help when activation has decayed beyond the point of being able to recall the goal. These two factors are strengthening and prim-ing.…”

“…There is insufficient data to determine whether the pharmacists took longer to complete the primary task following the interruption, but laboratory data suggests that this would not be the case. (Cades, Trafton, & Monk, 2011;Gillie & Broadbent, 1989;Hodgetts & Jones, 2006;Trafton, Altmann, Brock, & Mintz, 2003).…”

Interruption Practice Reduces Procedural Errors at the Post-Completion Step

“…To investigate the specificity of the practice effect for task/interruption pairs, Cades et al (2011) used a clever paradigm where they used two different interrupting tasks but only a single primary task. Some participants saw the same interrupting task throughout the experiment, while other participants switched interrupting tasks.…”

“…They found that participants got faster and better at resuming only when they received practice with the interruption; when the interruption was switched, there was no benefit to practice. Cades et al (2011) explained this effect by suggesting that the interrupting task primed the primary task. Resumption suffered because the priming from the interruption task is reduced when switched.…”