The Effects of Interruption Context on Task Performance

Abstract

This study examines the effects of contextual similarity or dissimilarity of interruptions during task performance. Participants engaged in a series of working memory tasks using a computer interface. While performing these tasks they were intermittently interrupted and required to perform a different task. Each participant was interrupted with four different tasks that varied in context from identically related information given during the primary task to unrelated contextual information. Performance was assessed based on the total number of errors during each task before and after an interruption. Results revealed an increase in error rate when a participant was interrupted with a contextually dissimilar task compared to the primary task. These findings suggest that a person who experiences an interruption by a task with contextually identical information to the primary task will make fewer errors following the completion of the interruption compared to a task with contextually dissimilar information.

Impact of Frequent Interruption on Nurses’ Patient-Controlled Analgesia Programming Performance

“…At the computer screen, each nurse responded to one simple, unique question, such as “What day of the week is today?” “What is the brand name of the PCA you are programming today?” and “Did you see a movie at the theater in the last 30 days?” Each nurse submitted a response, then returned to the PCA programming task. Unpredictable, forced interruption followed by a computer-based secondary task with contextual similarity has been used successfully in other interruption research to simulate cognitive processes (Eatchel, Kramer, & Drews, 2012; Monk, 2004).…”

Pardon the Interruption: An Integrative Review and Future Research Agenda for Research on Work Interruptions

“…The effects of other interrupting task attributes in relation to cognitive mediators are equivocal. Some scholars linked the similarity of the interrupting and interrupted tasks to fewer errors (Eatchel, Kramer, & Drews, 2012), while others did not find this effect (Pankok et al, 2017; Speier et al, 1999), and still others found the opposite effect (Edwards & Gronlund, 1998). Mark, Gudith, and Klocke (2008) suggested that variations in how similarity was operationalized could have led to mixed results, but there is scope to probe these effects further.…”