Affective Interruptions Impair Task Performance Less Than Neutral Ones Across Age and Task Demands

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Affective Computing

Background:

• Interruptions in digital environments frequently impair task performance.
• The affective properties (valence, arousal) of interruptions are understudied compared to task-related factors.
• Age-related differences in cognitive and emotional processing may influence interruption impacts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how affective characteristics of interruptions influence task resumption and post-interruption performance.
• To examine these effects across different age groups (younger vs. middle-aged/older adults).
• To assess the impact of task complexity on interruption effects.

Main Methods:

• Three experiments involving 179 participants (younger and middle-aged/older adults).
• Participants performed simple and complex tasks interrupted by static images or videos varying in valence and arousal.
• Behavioral outcomes included resumption lag, task completion time, and accuracy, analyzed with meta-analytic estimates.

Main Results:

• Affective interruptions led to longer resumption lags but higher post-interruption accuracy compared to neutral interruptions.
• High-arousal positive interruptions showed speed advantages, particularly in middle-aged/older adults.
• Age differences in overall interruption cost were robust, but age did not alter the direction of affective influences.

Conclusions:

• Affective interruptions do not uniformly increase disruption; they can preserve or improve post-interruption accuracy.
• Conditional speed benefits exist for older adults with affective interruptions.
• Designing interruptions with affective properties may mitigate performance decrements, especially for older users.