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Experimental Analysis of Behavior

Old Dominion University

Interruption

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Psychology

The Effects Of Interruption Relevance And Complexity On Primary Task Resumption And Mental Demand, Brandon Allan Fluegel Apr 2020

The Effects Of Interruption Relevance And Complexity On Primary Task Resumption And Mental Demand, Brandon Allan Fluegel

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

In the present study, undergraduate students viewed patient charts and entered numerical values from these charts into a medical record database. They were unexpectedly interrupted by secondary tasks that differed in relevance and complexity. The secondary tasks varied by whether they facilitated or inhibited (i.e., relevant or irrelevant) rehearsal of the suspended task and whether they placed a demand on working memory (i.e., high complexity or low complexity). The primary measures of interest were the duration of time needed to resume the primary task and perceived mental demand. The Memory for Goals model (Altmann & Trafton, 2002) predicts that task …


The Effect Of Interruptions During A Laparoscopy Skills Training Task, Brandon Allan Fluegel Jul 2017

The Effect Of Interruptions During A Laparoscopy Skills Training Task, Brandon Allan Fluegel

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The goal of the present study was to examine how interruptions during a laparoscopic skills training task affected task performance. Undergraduate students completed a task that required them to pick up and transfer colored objects in a specific, predetermined sequence. The number of colored objects in the sequence was varied to produce three levels of task demand. During execution of the primary task, participants were interrupted by auditory task-irrelevant communication. The temporal length of interruptions was also manipulated to produce three levels of interruption duration. Results showed that participants made significantly more sequence errors in the high demand condition than …