Research on Everyday Work | Knowledge & Practice

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Research on “中断”

3 studies

Experimental research2008

The cost of interrupted work: more speed and stress

Participants compensated for interruptions by working faster, but experienced more stress, frustration and perceived effort.

Connection to this page

Consider the burden of interruptions and repeated checking, rather than judging busyness only by processing time.

Participants, methods, scope and bibliography

Participants and methods: 48 people answered emails in a simulated workplace under no-interruption, same-context interruption and different-context interruption conditions.
Scope and limitations: Most participants were university students, and the simulated work was brief. No decline in quality was detected in this task.

Gloria Mark, Daniela Gudith, Ulrich Klocke (2008). The cost of interrupted work: more speed and stress

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’08), 107–110

DOI: 10.1145/1357054.1357072

Empirical research and intervention experiments2018

Tasks Interrupted: How Anticipating Time Pressure on Resumption of an Interrupted Task Causes Attention Residue and Low Performance on Interrupting Tasks and How a “Ready-to-Resume” Plan Mitigates the Effects

Anticipating time pressure on resumption made attention more likely to remain on the interrupted task. A brief resumption plan reduced the impact on the interrupting task.

Connection to this page

Closely relates to briefly recording where to resume the original work when switching to an urgent request.

Participants, methods, scope and bibliography

Participants and methods: Four studies examined anticipated time pressure after resuming interrupted work and an intervention that briefly planned how to return to it.
Scope and limitations: The findings depend on the time-pressure and interruption conditions studied. They do not establish effects for every interruption or for all outcomes after resumption.

Sophie Leroy, Theresa M. Glomb (2018). Tasks Interrupted: How Anticipating Time Pressure on Resumption of an Interrupted Task Causes Attention Residue and Low Performance on Interrupting Tasks and How a “Ready-to-Resume” Plan Mitigates the Effects

Organization Science, 29(3), 380–397

DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2017.1184

Foundational theory and computational model2002

Memory for goals: an activation-based model

Explained interruption and resumption of goals through interference from older goals, processes that maintain goals in memory and cues for later retrieval.

Connection to this page

Provides a foundation for understanding why locations and retrieval cues can help resume work, rather than relying on memory alone.

Participants, methods, scope and bibliography

Participants and methods: Developed a computational model representing goal memory through activation and associative cues, and tested it against response-time and error data from the Tower of Hanoi task.
Scope and limitations: This theoretical model is based on a particular cognitive task. It did not directly measure the effects of workplace notes.

Erik M. Altmann, J. Gregory Trafton (2002). Memory for goals: an activation-based model

Cognitive Science, 26(1), 39–83

DOI: 10.1207/s15516709cog2601_2

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Research on “中断”

The cost of interrupted work: more speed and stress

Connection to this page

Tasks Interrupted: How Anticipating Time Pressure on Resumption of an Interrupted Task Causes Attention Residue and Low Performance on Interrupting Tasks and How a “Ready-to-Resume” Plan Mitigates the Effects

Connection to this page

Memory for goals: an activation-based model

Connection to this page

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