Multitasking and interrupted task performance: From theory to application

The Wiley Handbook of Psychology, Technology, and Society

Volumn , Issue , 2015, Pages 436-452

  Werner, Nicole E ^a   Cades, David M ^b   Boehm Davis, Deborah A ^a  

^a GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b EXPONENT INC   (United States)

Author keywords

Disruptions; Distractions; Interrupted Task Performance; Interruptions; Multitasking

Indexed keywords

EID: 85006324872     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1002/9781118771952.ch25     Document Type: Chapter

References (74)

1. Altmann, E. M., & Trafton, J. G. (2002). Memory for goals: An activation-based model. Cognitive Science, 26(1), 39-83.
2. Altmann, E. M., Trafton, J. G., & Hambrick, D. Z. (2014). Momentary interruptions can derail the train of thought. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143, 215-226.
3. Anderson, J. R. (2007). How can the human mind occur in the physical universe? Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
4. Anderson, J. R., & Lebiere, C. (1998). Atomic components of thought. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
5. Arroyo, E., & Selker, T. (2011). Attention and intention goals can mediate disruption in human-computer interaction. In P. Campos, N. Graham, J. Jorge, N. Nunes, P. Palanque, & M. Winckler (Eds.), Human-computer interaction-INTERACT2011, 13th IFIP TC 13 international conference (Lisbon, Portugal, September 5-9, 2011): Proceedings, Part II (pp. 454-470). Heidelberg, Germany: Springer.
6. Bailey, B. P., & Konstan, J. A. (2006). On the need for attention-aware systems: Measuring effects of interruption of task performance, error rate, and affective state. Computers in Human Behavior, 22(4), 685-708.
7. Bangerter, A., Chevalley, E., & Derouwaux, S. (2010). Managing third-party interruptions in conversations: Effects of duration and conversational role. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 29(2), 235-244.
8. Basex. (2006, January 9). Workplace interruptions cost US economy $588 bn a year. Retrieved from http://www.basex.com/press.nsf/0/E53F4C6142D119A6852570F9001AB0EC?OpenDocument
9. Begley, S. (2009). Will the BlackBerry sink the presidency? Newsweek, 153, 7.
10. Blake, N. (2014). The effect of alarm fatigue on the work environment. AACN Advanced Critical Care, 25(1), 18-19.
11. Boehm-Davis, D. A., & Remington, R. (2009). Reducing the disruptive effects of interruption: A cognitive framework for analysing the costs and benefits of intervention strategies. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 41(5), 1124-1129.
12. Borst, J. P., Taatgen, N. A., & van Rijn, H. (2010). The problem state: A cognitive bottleneck in multitasking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36, 2.
13. Cades, D. A. (2011). Understanding the effects of interruptions on the quality of task performance. [Dissertation]. George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1920/6338
14. Cades, D. M., Boehm-Davis, D. A., Trafton, J. G., & Monk, C. A. (2011). Mitigating disruptive effects of interruptions through training: What needs to be practiced? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 17(2), 97.
15. Cades, D. M., Ratwani, R. M., Boehm-Davis, D. A., & Trafton, J. G. (2008). Resuming from interruptions: Looking for common trends across multiple environments. Cognitive Science Society Conference, Washington, DC.
16. Cades, D. M., Trafton, J. G., & Boehm-Davis, D. A. (2006). Mitigating disruptions: Can resuming an interrupted task be trained? Proceedings of the HFES 50th Annual Meeting (pp. 234-238). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
17. Cades, D. M., Trafton, J. G., Boehm-Davis, D. A., & Monk, C. A. (2007). Does the difficulty of an interruption affect our ability to resume? Proceedings of the HFES 51st Annual Meeting (pp. 368-371). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
18. Cades, D. M., Werner, N. E., Arshad, Z., & Boehm-Davis, D. A. (2010, September). What makes real-world interruptions disruptive? Evidence from an office setting. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting (Vol. 54, No. 4, pp. 448-452). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
19. Cades, D. M., Werner, N. E., Trafton, J. G., Boehm-Davis, D. A., & Monk, C. A. (2008). Dealing with interruptions can be complex, but does interruption complexity matter? A mental resources approach to quantifying disruptions. Proceedings of the HFES 52nd Annual Meeting. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
20. Cane, J. E., Cauchard, F., & Weger, U. W. (2012). The time-course of recovery from interruption during reading: Eye movement evidence for the role of interruption lag and spatial memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65(7), 1397-1413.
21. Carlson, M., & Miller, N. (1987). Explanation of the relation between negative mood and helping. Psychological Bulletin, 102(1), 91.
22. Cellier, J.-M., & Eyrolle, H. (1992). Interference between switched tasks. Ergonomics, 35(1), 25-36.
23. Czerwinski, M., Christman, S., & Rudisill, M. (1991). Interruptions in multitasking situations: The effects of similarity and warning. Technical Report JSC-24757, NASA Johnson Space Center.
24. Dismukes, R. K. (2012). Prospective memory in workplace and everyday situations. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21(4), 215-220.
25. Duggan, M., & Smith, A. (2013, December 30). Social media update 2013. Pew Internet & American Life Project. Retrieved from http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Social-Media-Update.aspx
26. Edwards, M. B., & Gronlund, S. D. (1998). Task interruption and its effects on memory. Memory, 6, 665-687.
27. Einstein, G. O., McDaniel, M. A., Williford, C. L., Pagan, J. L., & Dismukes, R. (2003). Forgetting of intentions in demanding situations is rapid. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 9(3), 147.
28. Foroughi, C., Werner, N. W., Nelson, E. T., & Boehm-Davis, D. A. (2014). Do interruptions affect the quality of work? Human Factors, 56, 7, 1262-1271.
29. France, D. J., Levin, S., Hemphill, R., Chen, K., Rickard, D., Makowski, R.,... Aronsky, D. (2005). Emergency physicians' behaviors and workload in the presence of an electronic whiteboard. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 74(10), 827-837.
30. Garrett, R. K., & Danziger, J. N. (2008). IM = interruption management? Instant messaging and disruption in the workplace. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 23-42.
31. Gillie, T., & Broadbent, D. (1989). What makes interruptions disruptive? A study of length, similarity and complexity. Psychological Research, 50(4), 243-250.
32. Grundgeiger, T., & Sanderson, P. (2009). Interruptions in healthcare: Theoretical views. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 78(5), 293-307.
33. Gupta, A., Li, H., & Sharda, R. (2013). Should I send this message? Understanding the impact of interruptions, social hierarchy and perceived task complexity on user performance and perceived workload. Decision Support Systems, 55(1), 135-145.
34. Hodgetts, H. M., & Jones, D. M. (2005). Interrupting problem solving: Effects of interruption position and complexity. In M. Katsikitis (Ed.), Past reflection, future directions: Proceeding of the 40th Australian Psychological Society Annual Conference, Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne, Australia: Australian Psychological Society.
35. Hodgetts, H. M., & Jones, D. M. (2006a). Interruption of the Tower of London task: Support for a goal-activation approach. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 135, 103-115.
36. Hodgetts, H. M., & Jones, D. M. (2006b). Contextual cues aid recovery from interruption: The role of associative activation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 32, 1120-1132.
37. Iqbal, S. T., & Bailey, B. P. (2005). Investigating the effectiveness of mental workload as a predictor of opportune moments for interruption. CHI Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1489-1492.
38. Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. (2001). A follow-up review of wrong site surgery. Retrieved from http://www.jointcommission.org/sentinel_event_alert_issue_24_a_follow-up_review_of_wrong_site_surgery/
39. Jones, K. (2014). Alarm fatigue a top patient safety hazard. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 186(3), 178. doi:10.1503/cmaj.109-4696
40. Jones, S. A., Gould, S. J. J., & Cox, A. L. (2012). Snookered by an interruption? Use a cue. In People and Computers XXVI: Proceedings of the 26th Annual BCS Interaction Specialist Group Conference on People and Computers (BCS-HCI '12) (pp. 251-256). Swindon, UK: British Computer Society.
41. LaHood, R. (2013). A message from Secretary LaHood. Distraction. gov. Retrieved from http://www.distraction.gov/content/about-us/message-from-secretary-LaHood.html
42. Latorella, K. A. (1998). Effects of modality on interrupted flight deck performance: Implications for data link. Proceedings of the HFES 42nd Annual Meeting 1998. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
43. Li, S. Y. W., Cox, A. L., Blandford, A., Cairns, P., Young, R. M., & Abeles, A. (2006). Further investigations into postcompletion error: The effects of interruption position and duration. Paper presented at the 28th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
44. Mansi, G., & Levi, Y. (2013). Do instant messaging interruptions help or hinder workers' task performance? International Journal of Information Management, 33(3), 591-596.
45. Marulanda-Carter, L., & Jackson, T. W. (2012). Effects of e-mail addiction and interruptions on employees. Journal of Systems and Information Technology, 14(1), 82-94.
46. Miyata, Y., & Norman, D. A. (1986). Psychological issues in support of multiple activities. In D. A. Norman & S. W. Draper (Eds.), User-centered system design (pp. 265-284). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
47. Monk, C. A. (2004). The effect of frequent versus infrequent interruptions on primary task resumption. Paper presented at the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 48th Annual Meeting, Santa Monica, CA.
48. Monk, C. A., Boehm-Davis, D. A., & Trafton, J. G. (2002). The attentional costs of interrupting task performance at various stages. Proceedings of the HFES Annual Meeting (pp. 1824-1828). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
49. Monk, C. A., Boehm-Davis, D. A., & Trafton, J. G. (2008). The effect of interruption duration on resuming suspended goals. Journal ofExperimental Psychology: Applied, 14(4), 299-313.
50. Monsell, S. (2003). Task switching. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(3), 134-140.
51. Morgan, P. L., & Patrick, J. (2013). Paying the price works: Increasing goal-state access cost improves problem solving and mitigates the effect of interruption. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 66(1), 160-178.
52. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). (2012). Visual-manual NHTSA driver distractionguidelinesfor in-vehicle electronic devices (Docketno. NHTSA-2010-0053). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Docket Management Facility.
53. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). (1991). Aircraft accident report. Runway collision of USAir Flight 1493, Boeing 737 and SkyWest Flight 5569 Fairchild Metroliner, Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, California, February 1, 1991 (Rep. No. NTSB-AAR-91-8). Washington, DC: Author.
54. O'Conaill, B., & Frohlich, D. (1995). Timespace in the workplace: Dealing with interruptions. In Human Factors in Computing Systems: CHI '95 Companion (pp. 262-263). New York, NY: ACM.
55. Ophir, E., Nass, C., & Wagner, A. D. (2009). Cognitive control in media multitaskers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(37), 15583-15587.
56. Oulasvirta, A., & Saariluoma, P. (2004). Long-term working memory and interrupting messages in human-computer interaction. Behaviour and Information Technology, 23(1), 53-64.
57. Pool, M. M., Van der Hort, T. H. A., Beentjes, J. W. J., & Koolstra, C. M. (2000). Background television as an inhibitor of performance on easy and difficult homework assignments. Communication Research, 27(3), 293-326.
58. Quan, S. D., Wu, R. C., Rossos, P. G., Arany, T., Groe, S., Morra, D.,... Lau, F. Y. (2013). It's not about pager replacement: An in-depth look at the interprofessional nature of communication in healthcare. Journal of Hospital Medicine, 8(3), 137-143.
59. Quaresma, M. (2012). Assessment of visual demand of typical data entry tasks in automotive navigation systems for iPhone. Work: A Journal ofPrevention, Assessment and Rehabilitation, 41 (Suppl. 1), 6139-6144.
60. Ratwani, R. M., McCurry, J. M., & Trafton, J. G. (2008). Predicting post-completion errors using eye movements. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 539-542). New York, NY: ACM.
61. Rivera-Rodriguez, A. J., & Karsh, B. T. (2010). Interruptions and distractions in healthcare: Review and reappraisal. Quality and Safety in Healthcare, 19(4), 304-312.
62. Salvucci, D. D., & Taatgen, N. A. (2008). Threaded cognition: An integrated theory of concurrent multitasking. Psychological Review, 115(1), 101.
63. Salvucci, D. D., & Taatgen, N. A. (2010). The multitasking mind. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
64. Salvucci, D. D., Taatgen, N. A., & Borst, J. P. (2009, April). Toward a unified theory of the multitasking continuum: From concurrent performance to task switching, interruption, and resumption. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1819-1828). New York, NY: ACM.
65. Santell, J. P. (2005). Medication errors: Experience of the United States Pharmacopeia (USP). Journal of Quality and Patient Safety, 31(2), 114-119.
66. Shum, D. H. K., Cahill, A., Hohaus, L. C., O'Gorman, J. G., & Chan, R. C. K. (2013). Effects of aging, planning, and interruption on complex prospective memory. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 23(1), 45-63.
67. Smith, K. (2013, March 31). The texting dead. The New York Post. Retrieved from http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_texting_dead_MU5foa9q45bggABb122SxO
68. Speier, C., Valacich, J., & Vessey, I. (1999). The influence of task interruption on individual decision making: An information overload perspective. Decision Sciences, 30(2), 337-360.
69. Sykes, E. R. (2011). Interruptions in the workplace: A case study to reduce their effects. International Journal of Information Management, 31(4), 385-394.
70. Trafton, J. G., Altmann, E. M., & Brock, D. P. (2005). Huh, what was I doing? How people use environmental cues after an interruption. Proceedings of the HFES 49th Annual Meeting. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
71. Trafton, J. G., Altmann, E. M., Brock, D. P., & Mintz, F. (2003). Preparing to resume an interrupted task: Effects of prospective goal encoding and retrospective rehearsal. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 58, 583-603.
72. Werner, N. E., Cades, D. M., & Boehm-Davis, D. A. (under review). Real world interruptions are complex: But what defines interruption complexity? Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science.
73. Young, K. L., Mitsopoulos-Rubens, E., Rudin-Brown, C. M., & Lenné, M. G. (2012). The effects of using a portable music player on simulated driving performance and task-sharing strategies. Applied Ergonomics, 43(4), 738-746.
74. Zijlstra, F. R. H., Roe, R. A., Leonora, A. B., & Krediet, I. (1999). Temporal factors in mental work: Effects of interrupted activities. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 72(2), 164-185.