Multitasking with Alexa

Abstract

Intelligent personal assistants (IPAs) are supposed to help us multitask. Yet the impact of IPA use on multitasking is not clearly quantified, particularly in situations where primary tasks are also language based. Using a dual task paradigm, our study observes how IPA interactions impact two different types of writing primary tasks; copying and generating content. We found writing tasks that involve content generation, which are more cognitively demanding and share more of the resources needed for IPA use, are significantly more disrupted by IPA interaction than less demanding tasks such as copying content. We discuss how theories of cognitive resources, including multiple resource theory and working memory, explain these results. We also outline the need for future work how interruption length and relevance may impact primary task performance as well as the need to identify effects of interruption timing in user and IPA led interruptions.

See What I’m Saying? Comparing Intelligent Personal Assistant Use for Native and Non-Native Language Speakers

“…Recent research in HCI has predominantly focused on understanding IPA user experience from the L1 perspective. It highlights that a major benefit of speech as a modality lies in its facilitation of multitasking, especially in hands-busy/eyes-busy situations such as driving or looking after children [15,29] (although the benefits of multitasking with speech are heavily dependent on primary task demand [22]). IPAs are commonly used for information search, controlling music applications, setting alarms and timers, and to control IoT (Internet of Things) devices (e.g.…”

Conversational User Interfaces on Mobile Devices

“…Distraction from this task, however, is not so easily defined. As Lee et al note [56], the definition of distraction in the literature is varied and ranges from reasons to outcomes, yet one common theme is that of attention and its distribution between multiple ongoing tasks [27]. Here we adopt their common definition: "Driver distraction is a diversion of attention away from activities critical for safe driving towards a competing activity. "…”

A modeling approach to introduce haptic feedback in multimodal awareness for groupware systems

“…To increase the bandwidth, some systems resort to spoken messages (e.g., AOL's "you've got mail" message). Although spoken messages and alerts are common in conversational UIs, they can distract and overwhelm the user if overused to provide awareness when the main task is cognitively demanding Edwards et al (2019).…”