The effects of interruptions in work activity: field and laboratory results.

The effects of interruptions in work activity were investigated, first in a field study where the operators' task was to card-index data about customers' phone lines. The interruptions due to customers' calls resulted in an increase of the processing time of the current task and in the use of several management strategies. A laboratory study was then designed in order to study the effects of temporal strain, complexity and similarity on time-sharing efficiency and to clarify the psychological mechanisms underlying the switching from one task to the other. The results showed especially a significant effect of temporal strains on performance and a strong increase in mean error rate at the very beginning of the processing of the second task. In conclusion, advice is given for both technical and organisational design.

[1]  R. Hockey.  Stress and fatigue in human performance , 1984 .

[2]  P Carayon,et al.  Stressful jobs and non-stressful jobs: a cluster analysis of office jobs. , 1994, Ergonomics.

[3]  Daniel Gopher,et al.  On the Economy of the Human Processing System: A Model of Multiple Capacity. , 1977 .

[4]  Walter Schneider,et al.  Controlled and automatic human information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending and a general theory. , 1977 .

[5]  Robert A. Roe,et al.  Interruptions in mental information work. Effects on work activity and psychological well-being , 1996 .

[6]  A. Treisman.  SELECTIVE ATTENTION IN MAN. , 1964, British medical bulletin.

[7]  Daniel G Bobrow,et al.  On data-limited and resource-limited processes , 1975, Cognitive Psychology.

[8]  G R Hockey,et al.  Assessing the impact of computer workload on operator stress: the role of system controllability. , 1989, Ergonomics.

[9]  J. Deutsch.  Perception and Communication , 1958, Nature.

[10]  R. Shiffrin,et al.  Controlled and automatic human information processing: I , 1977 .

[11]  D. Broadbent,et al.  What makes interruptions disruptive? A study of length, similarity, and complexity , 1989 .

[12]  Raja Parasuraman,et al.  Varieties of attention , 1984 .

[13]  D. Kahneman.  Attention and Effort , 1973 .

[14]  J. Shaoul.  Human Error , 1973, Nature.

[15]  J. Cellier,et al.  Interference between switched tasks , 1992 .

[16]  A. Welford.  Single-channel operation in the brain. , 1967, Acta psychologica.

[17]  C. H. Edwards.  Applied ergonomics. , 1990, Work.