Training to Reduce the Disruptive Effects of Interruptions

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Abstract
Two multi-session experiments are described in which a complex problem-solving task was interrupted at different stages of practice. In Experiment 1, subjects practiced the main problem-solving task for three sessions, with intermittent interruptions during each session. By the end of Session 3, interruptions which were similar to the main task, in terms of type of material processed and processing demands, no longer disrupted performance as they had in Sessions 1 and 2. In Experiment 2, subjects practiced the same problem-solving task for two sessions without interruptions. The same types of interruptions used in Experiment 1 were introduced in Session 3. Although the main task was well learned by the third session, the interruptions disrupted subjects' main-task accuracies dramatically. These results suggest that training tasks under uninterrupted conditions can lead to excellent performance, but may not allow subjects to develop the kinds of strategies needed to flexibly recover from interruptions when they occur.

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