Department of Work, Engineering and Organizational Psychology, Technische Universitaet Berlin.
J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2022 Feb;48(2):159-173. doi: 10.1037/xhp0000981.
The goal of the present study was to examine effects of complexity and similarity of an interruption task on postinterruption performance in an 8-step procedural task with sequential constraints. In Experiment 1, the primary task was interrupted between different steps with 1 of 4 versions of n-back task, which differed in complexity (simple, complex) and similarity in processing codes (verbal, spatial) to the primary task. After the interruption, participants (N = 44) had to resume the primary task as quickly as possible with the next correct step, that is, the 1 following the step after which the interruption occurred. Postinterruption performance in terms of resumption times, sequence errors and nonsequence errors was assessed. Results of Experiment 1 revealed longer resumption times and more sequence errors after complex interruptions compared to the simple ones. However, effects of processing-code similarity were less clear. For assessing the effects of similarity in processing codes again in Experiment 2, participants (N = 41) performed the same primary task and were interrupted with a verbal or a spatial classification task. The results revealed no significant effect of processing code on the postinterruption performance. Moreover, a posthoc analysis revealed that 1-back (sequential) interruption led to longer resumption times compared to the classification (nonsequential) interruption. Overall, our results revealed strong and consistent detrimental effects of interruption complexity on the postinterruption performance and no effect of similarity in processing codes. Finally, we provide preliminary evidence that similarity in sequential structure between the tasks can influence the resilience toward interruptions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
本研究的目的是考察在具有顺序约束的 8 步程序性任务中，中断任务的复杂性和相似性对中断后表现的影响。在实验 1 中，主要任务在不同步骤之间被 4 种 n-back 任务中的 1 种中断，这些任务在处理代码（言语、空间）与主要任务的相似性和复杂性上有所不同。中断后，参与者（N=44）必须尽快用下一个正确的步骤（即中断发生后的下一个步骤）继续主要任务。以恢复时间、序列错误和非序列错误来评估中断后的表现。实验 1 的结果表明，与简单中断相比，复杂中断后的恢复时间更长，序列错误更多。然而，处理代码相似性的影响不太明显。为了在实验 2 中再次评估处理代码相似性的影响，参与者（N=41）执行相同的主要任务，并被言语或空间分类任务中断。结果显示处理代码对中断后的表现没有显著影响。此外，事后分析显示，与分类（非序列）中断相比，1 回（序列）中断导致恢复时间更长。总体而言，我们的结果显示中断复杂性对中断后表现有强烈且一致的不利影响，而处理代码相似性没有影响。最后，我们提供了初步证据，表明任务之间序列结构的相似性可以影响对中断的恢复能力。（PsycInfo 数据库记录（c）2022 APA，保留所有权利）。
