Helpful or Harmful? Examining the Effects of Interruptions on Task Performance

摘要

Most research on interruptions has shown that they can be disruptive by causing a longer time to complete theprimary task and by causing more errors on the primary task. However, a limited amount of research has shownthat interruptions can actually be beneficial to simple primary tasks, a benefit that has been explained by arousal.We sought to replicate the finding that simple tasks can benefit from interruptions and to examine the specificprocesses that are actually improving as a result of the interruptions. More specifically, reaction time data and eyemovement data were collected to account for motor actions and perceptual processes. Results indicate thatparticipants’ immediate action following the interruption was disrupted. However, participants’ other actionsduring the interruption trials were actually performed faster and with fewer errors as compared to the control. Thisspeed-up is not attributed to faster motor responses, but actually to faster perceptual processing.