Interruption Processing in a Decision-Making Task: Successful Integration of Interruptions and Task Resumption

Sheryl Miller

Advisor: Deborah A. Boehm-Davis, PhD, Department of Psychology

David J. King Hall, 2073 A
March 30, 2004, 07:00 PM to 07:00 PM

Abstract:

Previous research has ignored interruption contexts where there are competing memory requirements associated with the interruption itself and the resumption of the interrupted task. This complexity was investigated in a simulated team decision-making task where operators needed to remember both the interrupting message and the resumption point of the interrupted decision task. An initial experiment was used to assess the complex effects of different interruptions on initial and subsequent decisions. Interruptions resulted in longer decision times for the interrupted task when messages needed to be remembered over time. However, subsequent decisions were unaffected, and the eventual recall of message data actually resulted in faster decisions due to participant adaptation. A modest strategy to rehearse the task resumption point during the interruption lag was proposed but actually increased interrupted decision time. Participants who tried to remember both the message and the task resumption point performed worse, likely because of interference between the two items. The next three experiments tested this hypothesis by manipulating the costs of forgetting the interrupting message and forgetting the task resumption point. Experiments 2 and 3 differed in the complexity of the decision task. Experiment 4 manipulated the interface so that people had more opportunity to ignore messages. As predicted, participants consistently considered trade-offs between forgetting the interrupting message and forgetting the task resumption point.