Interruptions can take time from which to recover from and can lead to errors. Shorter interruptions are less disruptive than longer interruptions. Interruptions delivered during a natural break in a task are less disruptive. Interruptions that are relevant to the current task are less disruptive. Resuming a task too quickly can lead to errors being made. All of these characteristics of the resumption lag can be explained by an underlying memory retrieval process. People self-interrupt almost as often as being interrupted by external sources. People often work on multiple tasks at the same
...more
