Despite its vast capacity and associative powers, the human brain does not deal well with interruptions. Particularly in situations where information density is high, such as during a programming task, recovering from an interruption requires extensive time and effort. Although researchers recognize this problem, no programming tool takes into account the brain's structure and limitations in its design. In this dissertation, I describe my research collecting evidence about the impact of interruptions on programmers, understanding how programmers manage them in practice, and designing tools that can support interrupted programmers. I present a conceptual framework for understanding human memory organization and its strengths and weaknesses, particularly with respect to dealing with work interruptions. The framework explains empirical results obtained from experiments in which programmers were interrupted. For researchers, the intent is to use the framework to design development tools capable of compensating for human memory limitations. For developers, the insights and strategies from the framework should allow reflection on our own programming habits and work practices and how they may be tailored to better fit our human brain. The framework is evaluated by conducting two experiments that find that 1) developers can recall nearly twice as many past programming events using a tool designed with the framework over traditional tools, with comparable recall effort and 2) developers can remember to perform nearly twice as many prospective actions using a tool designed with the framework over traditional tools, with limited impact to cognitive load.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1987. / Title from title page screen, viewed July 25, 2005. Dissertation Committee: Ronald L. Laymon (chair), Robert L. Arnold, Ronald S. Halinski, Larry D. Kennedy, Mary Ann Lynn. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-67) and abstract. Also available in print.

Th.--Méd.--Reims, 1979. N°: 64.

As you move among the various spaces within the school you will notice that the volume is an encapsulation made from surfaces that describe what is material and what is void of material. This makes for interaction of the senses. What can be formed in material can transcend from built form directly and indirectly to the student through the duration of observation. Thus augmenting their knowledge and judgement. What can not be formed from material has to be thought of in a different way for the student.This nonmaterial form is subject to what binds it, making the experience from nontactile things such as light and darkness. The thesis undertook these conditions to make a place where observation is inclusive. Observation is the step in which a student must invoke their intellect to understand their purpose as an artist and to define their own uniqueness. Perhaps this is an atypical way for students to learn with regard to art but the making of art should be anything but typical. / Master of Architecture

Les interruptions sont une menace pour la réalisation des procédures dans un contexte opérationnel critique tel que l’aéronautique. De nombreux accidents et incidents étudiés par des organismes d’enquêtes ont révélé que l’un des nombreux facteurs impliqué concerne les interruptions. Elles entraînent des effets délétères au niveau des performances à la fois en matière de temps et d’erreurs dans la mesure où elles créent la nécessité de reprendre la tâche interrompue, induisant alors une tâche de mémoire prospective. Notre travail vise à améliorer les performances d’individus qui, comme les pilotes, effectuent de mémoire des procédures dont la suite d’actions est spatialement située dans leur environnement de travail alors même que les instructions sont présentées verbalement. Nous appuyant sur le modèle d’activation de buts (Altmann & Trafton, 2002) mais aussi sur des travaux connexes qui nous suggèrent des conditions favorisant la récupération des intentions d’actions, nous explorons la possibilité de diminuer les effets délétères des interruptions en réalisant des changements dans l’environnement des individus. Ces modifications interviendront soit lors de l’encodage de la procédure soit lors de son exécution pour aider à reprendre la tâche interrompue. Deux expériences, dans lesquelles les participants devaient réaliser une procédure mimant le comportement attendu lors d’une procédure normale de vol, ont permis d’évaluer les changements proposés. Nous avons collecté des données générales temporelles et d’erreurs en nous intéressant particulièrement à la principale mesure étudiée dans la littérature sur les interruptions (le temps de reprise de la tâche principale). Ces expériences ont été complétées par un pré-test de l’adaptation du protocole avec des pilotes de ligne.Tout d’abord, lors l’encodage de la procédure, nous montrons à travers l’expérience 1 que favoriser des formats d’instruction qui respectent les caractéristiques spatiales de la procédure va améliorer les performances des individus. Le format d’instruction visuo-spatial, qui fournit les relations spatiales entre les objets de la procédure améliore en effet les performances, comparé au format verbal et favorise notamment la reprise de la tâche interrompue. La diminution du niveau d’interférence permet au but suspendu d’être récupéré plus rapidement et efficacement. Ensuite, lors de la phase d’exécution de la tâche, les résultats de l’expérience 2 montrent qu’il est possible de soutenir plus directement la récupération du but interrompu après une interruption de tâche en fournissant un indice visuel qui améliore la reprise de la tâche. Ce résultat s’observe notamment lorsque l’indice indique la prochaine action correcte (indice prospectif) comparé à un indice sur la dernière action effectuée (indice rétrospectif). Avec ces expériences, nous proposons également de nouvelles mesures d’ajustement du temps et des erreurs, ainsi qu’un possible effet diffus de l’interruption que nous avons observé après la reprise de la tâche. Finalement, nous fournissons des recommandations pour la conception de systèmes embarqués destinés à aider le pilote lors de la réalisation des procédures de vol. / Interruptions are a major threat for procedures completion especially in critical contexts such as aeronautics. A lot of accidents analyzed by legal security organizations have underscored the role of interruption as one of the many factors involved in accident frequency. In fact, interruptions create a prospective memory task as interrupting someone implies that he must remember the main task to continue it after the interruption. As a result, interruptions could bring negative effects such as long resumption lag or errors when someone tries to remember what he was doing. Our work aims to increase individuals’ performance, such as pilots, when they are performing procedures known by heart in a spatialized work environment with mostly verbal instructions. From the goal activation memory model (Altmann & Trafton, 2002) and others works, we will explore ways to decrease the negative effect of interruptions by modifying encoding format of the task and by providing cues in order to help them recovering the suspended goal. In our two experiments, people had to realize procedures that mimic aeronautical ones. These procedures are designed to collect general data (time and error), and most particularly concerning the main effect of interruption which is the resumption lag of the primary task. These two experiments have been followed by an adaptation of the method with pilots on a flight simulator. First, for the procedure encoding (experiment 1), results showed that when we use an instruction format that match the task characteristics, individual’s performance increases. Indeed, visuo-spatial format that gives spatial relationship between tasks’ elements, increases individuals’ performance compared to the verbal format. These results are linked to the decrease of the interference level due to the balanced strengthening goals. Second, we have focused our attention on the execution phase of the task (experiment 2) and our results showed that giving a visual cue may increase the performance especially concerning the resumption lag. These results can be observed when the cue concerns the next correct action of the sequence (prospective cue) rather than the last action before the interruption (retrospective cue). Along these experiments, we also propose new adjustment measures of time and error and a possible diffuse effect of the interruption after the task resumption. Finally, we will give recommendations to conceive future system that aims to help pilots to perform their job.

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This dissertation examined the effects of interruption on auditor efficiency and effectiveness for one simple and two complex tasks within the audit domain. I evaluated these effects for novice and experienced auditors. In addition, I considered two ways in which the negative effects of interruption might be mitigated: varying an individual's interruption response strategy (immediate vs. negotiated) and the presence or absence of a memory-aid (notes). I investigated these phenomena using an internet-based experimental instrument. Subjects included both students and practicing auditors. My findings indicate that interruption hindered performance on certain complex audit tasks, and that it differentially affected auditor performance at two levels of experience. When interrupted, inexperienced auditors completed complex audit tasks less efficiently; experienced auditors completed them less effectively. In addition, experienced auditors who negotiated interruption completed a complex audit task more efficiently and effectively than those that responded to the interruption immediately. Furthermore, note-taking increased experienced auditor task efficiency on a complex audit task requiring judgment. These results suggest that auditors should limit task interruption when they are engaged in complex audit tasks. When task interruption cannot be avoided, auditors should consider negotiating a delay in the onset of an interruption. Finally, auditors who are interrupted while they complete a complex task requiring judgment should consider using notes to mitigate the deleterious effect of interruption on task efficiency. Participants also completed a post-experimental questionnaire which provided evidence about interruptions in the audit environment. The responses confirmed that auditors are frequently interrupted in practice. In addition, auditors preferred differing interruption response strategies dependent upon both the level of primary task complexity (easy vs. difficult), and the medium through which the interruption occurred (electronic vs. interpersonal). They chose interruption response strategies according to their place in the social hierarchy relative to the interrupter (client/boss vs. subordinate /friends/family). Finally, I found that interruption influences affect. Auditors reported significantly more positive affect reactions to interruption on easy tasks (e.g., alert, cheerful, friendly, happy and relaxed) and substantially negative affect reactions to interruption on difficult tasks (e.g., angry, hostile, irritated, nervous and tense). / Ph. D.

Thesis (M.Dev.) --University of Limpopo (Turfloop Campus), 2005 / The aim of this study was to investigate the socio-economic impact of interrupting TB treatment to the families of the TB sufferers and the reasons for patients interrupting treatment. The study was conducted at Mashishimale Village, Ba- Phalaborwa Municipality, Mopani District, Limpopo Province in South Africa. A sample of 35 tuberculosis patients and their family members was drawn from the Mashishimale population. The sample comprised of 17 (49%) males and 18 (51%) females. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to the participants to complete. The questionnaire elicited demographic information; knowledge about TB, its causes, signs and symptoms, transmission, the reasons for interrupting treatment, and the patients’ coping and support structures. The findings of the study reported that 50% of TB patients are conversant with the signs, symptoms and mode of the spread of TB. However, 43% of the TB patients reported that there was a perception that TB patients are also HIV positive. A further 29% mentioned that there is stigma attached to TB disease. The lack of a Directly Observed Treatment Supporter, poverty and poor nutrition, side-effects of drugs, loss of disability grants, long clinic queues, and traditional healing were some of the reasons cited for the interruption of TB treatment. The interruption of TB treatment had an impact on the socio-economic situation of the family as they often relied on assistance from social grants, other family members and churches.

Interruption interference refers to significant decreases in performance that occur following task interruption. Evidence has suggested that practicing recovering from interruptions can reduce interruption interference as measured by the time required for resuming the interrupted task. Conflicting evidence, however, has indicated that interruption practice might only improve resumption for the practiced primary and interrupting task-pair. The studies within this dissertation utilize a transfer paradigm to resolve this conflict and determine whether or not interruption resumption practice in one task-pair context can benefit interruption resumption in a novel task-pair context. A new theory, Interruption Recovery Goal, defines the mechanisms of interruption handling skill acquisition and transfer as production consolidation that facilitates the storage and maintenance, via rehearsal, of the pre-interruption task state, as well as any planned action sequences, for retrieval after the interruption. The first two reported studies provided evidence that interruption handling skill for one task-pair context transferred to a novel task-pair when one (first study) or both (second study) tasks in the context changed. The third study supported theories that have defined the mechanism of interruption handling skill as an improvement to primary task goal state and action sequence memory, rather than reconstruction, by showing that resumption times improved even when the onscreen display of the primary task’s target state was removed at resumption. This study also supported the task-general view of interruption handling skill by providing evidence that interruption handling skill acquisition and transfer did not strongly relate to primary task skill acquisition and transfer. The fourth study tested for interruption handling skill transfer across novel interruption contexts when interruption duration, the availability of pre-interruption rehearsal, or both differed at transfer. The results showed resumption time improvements across interruption contexts, indicating that rehearsal and retrieval mechanisms vital for interruption resumption remained similar across contexts for skill transfer. Although further research is needed to understand the extent to which this transfer is fully task-general, the theory supported by these studies provides new directions for the study of interruption handling skill and has implications for the development of training methods for reducing interruption interference in high-risk workplaces.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of computer-based simulation on prelicensure senior second semester undergraduate baccalaureate nursing students' knowledge and satisfaction. The goal was to explore the current state of nursing education in relation to the nursing student's experience with interruptions and interruption management as interruptions and interruption management are an underexplored area of the nursing education experience, yet interruptions impact nursing performance and patient safety. Including effective interruption management in nursing education is the ultimate aim of this effort. The design of the study was a descriptive case study with mixed methods including quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis. The quantitative analysis encompassed pretest and posttest drug calculation knowledge tests and a satisfaction survey. The qualitative portion of the study involved a focus group discussion relating to the nursing student's experience with interruptions and interruption management. The study results demonstrated that the participants were satisfied with the computer-based simulation. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that the professional nursing education of the study participants was devoid of interruption and interruption management education in the classroom, lab, and high-fidelity simulation. The themes that emerged from this study describe the current state of the second semester nursing student's experience with interruptions and interruption management and inform the need for interruption and interruption management education in professional nursing educational programs.