Assessing the transfer of interruption resumption skill to novel tasks

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Performance Psychology

Background:

• Task interruption leads to significant performance decrements, known as interruption interference.
• Practicing interruption resumption has shown potential to mitigate these effects by reducing task resumption time.
• Prior research suggested limited transfer of interruption practice benefits beyond trained task pairs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether the skill of interruption resumption, practiced within a specific task pair, can transfer to novel task pairs.
• To determine the conditions under which interruption resumption skill transfer occurs.
• To identify the underlying mechanisms of transferable interruption resumption skill.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a transfer paradigm across multiple experiments (Experiments 1A, 1B, and 2).
• Varied the interrupting task and manipulated primary tasks to minimize step reconstruction.
• Measured performance decrements and time to resume tasks following interruptions.

Main Results:

• Interruption resumption skill demonstrated transfer to a novel primary task, even when the interrupting task varied.
• Transfer was observed when the ability to reconstruct the next problem-solving step was minimized.
• Results suggest the transferred skill involves retrieving the suspended next planned action.

Conclusions:

• Interruption resumption skill is transferable to new task contexts, contrary to previous limited findings.
• The transfer of this skill suggests practical applications for interruption training to minimize interference.
• Further research can explore the mechanisms and applications of transferable interruption resumption skill.