No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Multimodal Support for Interruption Management: Models, Empirical Findings, and Design Recommendations
Abstract
Interactive media-based services and applications have become ubiquitous and compete for our attention in our everyday lives. Similarly, operators in many data-rich event-driven workplaces, such as aviation, medicine, and process control, experience considerable attentional demands, as they assume new responsibilities and interact with a growing number of automated systems. These trends have led to an increased risk of frequent and sometimes untimely interruptions. Supporting the effective management of these interruptions is critical to avoid performance breakdowns on both the ongoing and the interrupting tasks. One promising means of achieving this goal is the introduction of multimodal interfaces that distribute information across sensory channels to ensure the reliable and timely detection, accurate interpretation, and appropriate handling of interrupting tasks and signals. This paper will provide a brief overview of well-known models of interruption management (IM), present related empirical findings on multimodal information processing, and discuss their implications for the design of multimodal interfaces that support interruption handling.
... B. Seriennummern, Farbcodes, Symbole) angezeigt werden (z. B. Günthner, Wölfle & Fischer, 2011;Reif, Günthner, Schwerdtfeger & Klinker, 2010;Wölfle, 2014 (Brunyé, Taylor & Rapp, 2008;Dix, Ramduny-Ellis & Wilkinson J., 2004;Lu, Wickens, Sarter & Sebok, 2011;Nordin et al., 2010;Reason, 1990;Sarter, 2013;Sarter, 2006;Wickens, Prinet, Hutchins, Sarter & Sebok, 2011). ...
... Da die Aufmerksamkeit primär auf dem Werkstück liegt, ist oft die fehleranfälligere und aufwendigere Top-Down-Hinwendung zum Informationsträger erforderlich. Auch erschwert die kollektive Wahrnehmung von Informationsträgern die individuelle Zuordnung der Signale beim Empfänger (Sarter, 2013). ...
... Mit Attention Guiding kann die Aufmerksamkeit auf relevante Informationen gelenkt und deren Wahrnehmung erhöht werden (Stork & Schubö, 2010;Thorvald et al., 2014;Wickens, 2014). Im Vergleich zu kollektiven können individuelle Informationsträger die Informationszuordnung erleichtern und die Salienz gegenüber den multiplen Störsignalen der Montagehalle erhöhen (Sarter, 2013). Die Erwartung von Ereignissen ließe sich durch proaktive Hinweise steigern (Wickens, 2014). ...
Zusammenfassung
Hintergrund: Zur Anpassung an volatile Märkte sowie zur Optimierung der Produktion schreiten die Digitalisierung und Entwicklung zur Industrie 4.0 in der Automobilindustrie rasant voran. Die resultierende Zunahme der Flexibilität und Komplexität sowie steigende Datenmengen können die manuelle Ausführungsqualität in der variantenreichen Automobilmontage beeinträchtigen. Einschränkungen der Wahrnehmung stationärer Informationsträger während der Montage tragen zu Variantenfehlern und flexibles Neu- und Umlernen von Montagetätigkeiten zu weiteren Fehlerbildern bei. Zur Gewährleistung der Qualität bei steigenden Anforderungen gewinnen mobil zugängliche, bedarfsgerecht präsentierte Informationen an Bedeutung.
Zielstellung: Das Ziel der Arbeit liegt in der Evaluation am Körper getragener Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie (Wearable Devices) zur mobilen Informationsassistenz in der variantenreichen Automobilmontage. Anhand der Unterstützungspotenziale, Akzeptanz und Nutzungsbarrieren sollen Nutzungskriterien für zwei Anwendungsfälle exploriert werden.
Methoden: In vier Studien wird die Wahrnehmung von Smartwatches und Smartglasses (Studie 1), deren Assistenz beim Montagetraining (Studie 2), die Pilotierung der Smartwatch für zwei Anwendungsfälle in der Produktion (Studie 3) und ein Informationskonzept zur Einführung in das Unternehmen (Studie 4) an Mitarbeiterstichproben bei einem Automobilhersteller evaluiert. Mit variierender Gewichtung werden die Ausführungsleistung, die Akzeptanz anhand der Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technologie (UTAUT) sowie ergonomische Nutzungsbarrieren anhand des Workloads, des Diskomforts und Beschwerden erfasst.
Ergebnisse: Durch deren zuverlässige Wahrnehmung parallel zur Montagetätigkeit können Variantenfehler in der laufenden Produktion stark gesenkt werden. Die Informationsassistenz durch Wearable Devices kann Ausführungsfehler beim Montagetraining im Vergleich zur Standardprozedur über 80 % reduzieren. Im Trainings- und im Produktionskontext wurden die Wearable Devices positiv bewertet. In der Produktion zeigte die Systemanpassung an die Arbeitsprozesse und Anwenderbedarfe Einflüsse auf die Akzeptanz und den Workload. Die UTAUT wurde auf Wearable Devices in der Produktion übertragen und erweitert. Zentrale Einflussfaktoren lagen in der Nützlichkeit, dem Vertrauen, sozialen Einflüssen und deren Effekten auf den Workload. Akzeptanzbasierte Informationskonzepte können die Akzeptanz ohne Nutzungserfahrungen beeinflussen und so die Einführung in die Produktion unterstützen.
Fazit: Die multidimensionale Evaluation der Nutzungskriterien von Wearable Devices zeigt, dass sie zur Qualitätssteigerung beitragen und von den Mitarbeitern als Arbeitsmittel akzeptiert werden. Dafür sind die Wahl der Geräteklasse, die jeweiligen Gerätetypen, Anwendungen und deren Anpassung an die Bedarfe der Anwender und die Aufgaben entscheidend.
... Broadly speaking, reviews and analysis of interruptibility studies have involved two distinct approaches. On the one hand, interruptibility has been encompassed within the concepts and visions of wider attention-aware systems [45,49,40,54]. On the other hand, works have evaluated specific conventions relevant to interruptibility, such as the contextual features adopted [19]; whether to use experience sampling methods (ESM) [33] ; or human labelling by a third party [3]. ...
... We note that some studies consider multiple categories and others do not define an explicit definition of interruptibility; in these cases we have made our best judgement from the information provided. Overall, this supports previous claims that comparing studies is a difficult task [54]. ...
... Sarter [54] reviews interruption management in a multimodal context, highlighting approaches that have been developed for different sensory channels. In particular, presenting the user's involvement and decision making in the interruption management process, as well as highlighting the performance costs of interruptions and proposing empirically based recommendations for modality choices given a range of scenarios. ...
When should a machine attempt to communicate with a user? This is a historical problem that has been studied since the rise of personal computing. More recently, the emergence of pervasive technologies such as the smartphone have extended the problem to be ever-present in our daily lives, opening up new opportunities for context awareness through data collection and reasoning. Complementary to this there has been increasing interest in techniques to intelligently synchronise interruptions with human behaviour and cognition. However, it is increasingly challenging to categorise new developments, which are often scenario specific or scope a problem with particular unique features. In this paper we present a meta-analysis of this area, decomposing and comparing historical and recent works that seek to understand and predict how users will perceive and respond to interruptions. In doing so we identify research gaps, questions and opportunities that characterise this important emerging field for pervasive technology.
... Finally, prior work highlights the importance of interruption context [18,28]. Computationally, the interruption context broadly consists of features that describe the user (e.g., personality traits) [25,27], the task [1,10], the environment [5,27], the interruption [9], and the relationships between these [13,20]. In our work, we focus on garnering environment context: we hypothesize that the labels of objects that a person is interacting with can serve as valuable contextual cues to improve classification of interruptibility. ...
... In this paper, we use object labels as a cue to the context. quantify the disturbance that a person might experience as a result of an interruption, while the decision to interrupt depends upon a person's interruptibility as well as other factors such as the urgency and characteristics of the interrupting task [18,20]. In this work, we focus on the classification of interruptibility with the goal of using the results later within a broader framework for deciding when to interrupt. ...
Robots are increasingly being deployed in unstructured human environments where they will need to approach and interrupt collocated humans. Most prior work on robot interruptions has focused on how to interrupt a person or on estimating a human's awareness of the robot. Our work makes three contributions to this research area. First, we introduce an ordinal scale of interruptibility that can be used to rate the interruptibility of a human. Second, we propose the use of Conditional Random Fields (CRFs) and their variants, Hidden CRFs, and Latent-Dynamic CRFs, for classifying interruptibility. Third, we introduce the use of object labels as a visual cue to the context of an interruption in order to improve interruptibility estimates. Our results show that Latent-Dynamic CRFs outperform all other models across all tested conditions, and that the inclusion of object labels as a cue to context improves interruptibility classification performance, yielding the best overall results.
... Our participants may have sought redundant visual information to help them perform the vibrotactile identification task. In addition, redundancy can result in a performance trade-off between ongoing and interrupting tasks (Sarter, 2013). For all these reasons, it was important to test how strongly these potential confounds influence participants' performance with the vibrotactile display. ...
Healthcare workers often monitor patients while moving between different locations and tasks, and away from conventional monitoring displays. Vibrotactile displays can provide patient information in vibrotactile patterns that are felt regardless of the worker's location. We examined how effectively participants could identify changes in vibrotactile representations of patient heart rate (HR) and oxygen saturation (SpO₂). In Experiment 1, participants identified changes in HR and SpO₂ with greater than 90% accuracy while using vibrotactile displays configured in either an integrated or a separated format. In Experiment 2, incidental auditory and visual cues were removed and performance was still greater than 90% for the integrated display. In Experiments 3 and 4, ongoing tasks with low or high task load were introduced; high load worsened participants' response accuracy and speed at identifying vital signs. In Experiments 5 and 6, alternative designs were tested, including a design with a seemingly more natural mapping of HR to vibrotactile stimulation. However, no design supported more accurate performance than the integrated display. Results are interpreted with respect to multiple resource theory, and constraints on conforming to design guidelines are noted. Vibrotactile displays appear to be viable and therefore potentially suitable for use in healthcare and other contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
... The term interruptibility refers to the quality of being interruptible. Traditionally, these studies have considered mostly desktop computers and mobile device environments [1,4,5,12,67]. In these environments, users can sequentially perform multitasking for their ongoing and interrupting tasks; users can fully switch their visual and/or manual operations between tasks. ...
As a countermeasure to visual-manual distractions, auditory-verbal (voice) interfaces are becoming increasingly popular for in-vehicle systems. This opens up new opportunities for drivers to receive proactive personalized services from various service domains. However, prior studies warned that such interactions can cause cognitive distractions due to the nature of concurrent multitasking with a limited amount of cognitive resources. In this study, we examined (1) how the varying demands of proactive voice tasks under diverse driving situations impact driver interruptibility, and (2) how drivers adapt their concurrent multitasking of driving and proactive voice tasks, and how the adaptive behaviors are related to driver interruptibility. Our quantitative and qualitative analyses showed that in addition to the driving-task demand, the voice-task demand and adaptive behaviors are also significantly related to driver interruptibility. Additionally, we discuss how our findings can be used to design and realize three types of flow-control mechanisms for voice interactions that can improve driver interruptibility.
... This requires support for attention capture, interruption management, multitasking and workload planning through non-traditional approaches to display design, such as tactile and ambient interfaces (e.g. [13]- [15]). Another important consideration is the need for system transparency, i.e., the need to ensure that humans maintain awareness of, and can quickly be updated on the changing capabilities, intentions, reasoning and limitations of autonomous vehicles. ...
... Interruptions are distracting, potentially leading to task performance penalties [39,61], stress [37,39], antipathy [45], and even catastrophe [53,56], depending on the context. In the context of technology-driven interruptions, a large body of work in human factors engineering (HFE) and human-computer interaction (HCI) research has studied interruptions and ways of mitigating their effects. ...
As robots become increasingly prevalent in human environments, there will inevitably be times when the robot needs to interrupt a human to initiate an interaction. Our work introduces the first interruptibility-aware mobile-robot system, which uses social and contextual cues online to accurately determine when to interrupt a person. We evaluate multiple non-temporal and temporal models on the interruptibility classification task, and show that a variant of Conditional Random Fields (CRFs), the Latent-Dynamic CRF, is the most robust, accurate, and appropriate model for use on our system. Additionally, we evaluate different classification features and show that the observed demeanor of a person can help in interruptibility classification; but in the presence of detection noise, robust detection of object labels as a visual cue to the interruption context can improve interruptibility estimates. Finally, we deploy our system in a large-scale user study to understand the effects of interruptibility-awareness on human-task performance, robot-task performance, and on human interpretation of the robot’s social aptitude. Our results show that while participants are able to maintain task performance, even in the presence of interruptions, interruptibility-awareness improves the robot’s task performance and improves participant social perceptions of the robot.
... This often relies on a "low-hanging fruit" concept to draw an attacker in and is not as disruptive as an interruption may be to ongoing information processing. Previously, human factors researchers have formulated guidelines for managing interruption (Latorella, 1998;McFarlane, 2002;Sarter, 2005Sarter, , 2013. These guidelines can easily be flipped for the cyber domain to improve the defender's position. ...
Inverting human factors can aid in cyber defense by flipping well-known guidelines and using them to de-grade and disrupt the performance of a cyber attacker. There has been significant research on how we perform cyber defense tasks and how we should present information to operators, cyber defenders, and analysts to make them more efficient and more effective. We can actually create these situations just as easily as we can mitigate them. Oppositional human factors are a new way to apply well-known research on human attention allocation to disrupt potential cyber attackers and provide much-needed asymmetric benefits to the defender.
... This often relies on a "low-hanging fruit" concept to draw an attacker in and is not as disruptive as an interruption may be to ongoing information processing. Previously, human factors researchers have formulated guidelines for managing interruption (Latorella, 1998;McFarlane, 2002;Sarter, 2005Sarter, , 2013. These guidelines can easily be flipped for the cyber domain to improve the defender's position. ...
Inverting human factors can aid in cyber defense by flipping well-known guidelines and using them to degrade and disrupt the performance of a cyber attacker. There has been significant research on how we perform cyber defense tasks and how we should present information to operators, cyber defenders, and analysts to make them more efficient and more effective. We can actually create these situations just as easily as we can mitigate them. Oppositional human factors are a new way to apply well-known research on human attention allocation to disrupt potential cyber attackers and provide much-needed asymmetric benefits to the defender.
... Interruptions are distracting, potentially leading to task performance penalties [33,17], stress [17,16], antipathy [22], and even catastrophe [29,27], depending on context. Therefore, a large body of work in human factors engineering (HFE) and human-computer interaction (HCI) research has studied interruptions and ways of mitigating their effects. ...
As robots become increasingly prevalent in human environments, there will inevitably be times when a robot needs to interrupt a human to initiate an interaction. Our work introduces the first interruptibility-aware mobile robot system, and evaluates the effects of interruptibility-awareness on human task performance, robot task performance, and on human interpretation of the robot's social aptitude. Our results show that our robot is effective at predicting interruptibility at high accuracy, allowing it to interrupt at more appropriate times. Results of a large-scale user study show that while participants are able to maintain task performance even in the presence of interruptions, interruptibility-awareness improves the robot's task performance and improves participant social perception of the robot.
... Interactive media and applications have become ubiquitous and compete for attention in our everyday life and work. As discussed by Sarter [2013], this ubiquity has led to an increasing need for effective multimodal interfacing and decisions, including information distribution across different sensory channels to ensure detection, interpretation, and handling of signals. An overview of well-known models of multimodal management was presented by Sarter. ...
... The fields of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp) have also contributed to the study of interruptibility by building upon the body of psychological literature available. Some researchers have classified interruption types when studying their effects on humans [14,19], while others have focused on characterizing the environment [10,7], and still others have tried to define structures on the interruptee's task to determine an acceptable time to interrupt [1,11]. We found that determining the context of the interruption was an important factor for all the interruption research in HCI and Ubicomp; thus our work draws inspiration from this realization to incorporate a focus on interruption context. ...
... Similarly, UAV task described in this chapter, and the experimental tasks described in chapters III and IV contain few, if any interruptions. However, we do suggest that the architecture presented here could integrate interruption management findings (Sarter, 2013;Lu et al., 2013;Nikolic et al., 2001) in an effort dedicated to modeling exogenous attention allocation. ...
Computational cognitive models have wide ranging applications from reducing the time and cost of task and interface analyses to the discovery of new human cognitive phenomena. We investigate the use and limitations of IMPRINT, a task network simulation tool, and develop an extension to improve the modeling of task component execution limits in multi-task performance under high workload. The extension is implemented as a Soar agent that moderates task execution akin to executive processes in EPIC. We show that an IMPRINT model of a UAV operation task with the extension exhibits qualitatively distinct workload management strategies also observed in human performance of the same task. Next, we develop QN-ACTR models of a concurrent addition and targeting task and collect empirical data of human performance on the tasks to validate the models' predictions of execution time and a time sharing concurrency metric. We also use the empirical data to validate an IMPRINT model of the addition and targeting tasks. Both QN-ACTR and IMPRINT models capture the primary effects of variable task difficulty parameters on execution time and concurrency. Model inaccuracy at the subtask level provides evidence for the use of visual spatial memory during complex addition. In a second experiment with similar tasks, we introduce an incentive to examine the effects of effort on execution time and concurrency in dual task performance. Incentive induced effort is found to increase performance on the rewarded dimension without an increase in the time sharing concurrency metric, suggesting that the performance improvements are not derived from an increase in task scheduling efficiency or resource sharing but from the same improvements found in single task conditions. The QN-ACTR task models are modified to account for the increased effort by adjusting base level parameters and are validated with the empirical data.
... Problems in using mobile devices for multitasking while onthe-go are caused by limited attention resources. Based on the Multiple Resource Theory (Wickens, 1984), the user's attention while multitasking on-the-go is often divided into monitoring and deciding how to respond to dynamic contexts and events, as well as in executing responses (Sarter, 2013). Although individuals are able to multitask, tasks that compete for the same type of attention resources degrade performance. ...
Visual and auditory stimuli are frequently used for information communication on mobile devices. These feedback modalities, however, are less suitable for emerging wearable devices that are intended to support multitasking with minimum interruption. Use of vibrotactile stimuli is great alternatives due to their low disruption and high ability to attract attention.
Currently, effective vibration notifications are still elusive. In the present study, we explored a vibration notification mechanism by using a singular vibration motor to generate various vibration stimuli. This solution is appropriate for existing wearable devices that have a small form factor, limited internal space, and low battery capacity. Our first experiment investigated individuals’ vibration perception in order to select a set of vibration stimuli that were detectable and discriminable. In our second experiment, we mapped the 5 vibration stimuli that were identified in the first experiment to various mobile application events and evaluated user performance using a wrist mounted prototype device. Results indicate that our vibration notification design achieved an average response accuracy rate of 82.3% (SD=18.0%) and an average response time of 2.83 (SD=0.83) s. Moreover, results of the post-test questionnaire revealed that the average perceived usefulness towards the vibration notification design was rated 5.5 (SD=1.18) and the average perceived ease of use was rated 5.0 (SD=1.36) when using a 7-point rating scale. Overall, results indicated the present vibration notification design was perceived as useful and highlighted opportunities for improving perceptions of ease of use. Our findings inform the design of future vibration notifications on wearable devices and highlight the importance of increasing pair-wise dissimilarities, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use in designing effective vibration notifications.
Interruptions that occur during high-stakes tasks in healthcare increase the likelihood of adverse events. Research on interruption management strategies has addressed the outcomes of interruptions but not what influences the decision to accept or reject them. This study examined the effects of high and low levels of three moderators on the interruption decision-making process: priority, cost of the interruption, and method of interruption. Participants entered data in a simulated patient chart while monitoring simulated patient vital signs and were interrupted four times to perform other activities. Participants could either accept or reject each interruption. The results showed that high priority, low-cost, and face-to-face interruptions were more likely to be accepted. Thus, participants considered the nature of the interrupting task when deciding to suspend work on their current task. These results suggest that a better understanding of factors that affect interruption decisions can lay a foundation to help diminish their disruptiveness.
Human attention has become a critical resource for the effective design of smart services in which control may move back and forth between humans and computers. To avoid errors in critical conditions when the mental load is high, computer systems need to manage ongoing interruptions. In particular, the effect of interruptions can be mitigated with previews of computer-generated notifications. While previews have been used to increase engagement, research on their potential to mitigate the effect of interruptions is scarce. Using an experiment based on a game environment with varying task loads, we investigated the effect of previews on mitigating interruptions at several levels of mental load. We found interruptions that displayed previews added less to participants’ mental load but did not improve their overall performance. These results were consistent in all levels of task load. We summarize the article by discussing how previews can be designed to minimize the negative effects of interruptions.
Purpose
Knowledge workers live and work in a technology-enabled, push-notification world full of interruptions that create information overload, often requiring these workers to utilize task switching as a mechanism to meet multiple competing tasks' demands. Previous research has examined both the positive and, more often, negative effects from interruptions and task switching on knowledge workers' performance. However, this paper aims to examine knowledge workers' agentic approach to managing interruption signals and consequent task switching to remain dedicated to the task at hand.
Design/methodology/approach
Using an inductive grounded theory approach, we analyzed data from semi-structured interviews with knowledge workers regarding their experiences with task management strategies in interruption-heavy environments.
Findings
The results indicate the emergence of a new construct that we define as “task adherence.” We identified behavioral and technological mechanisms that knowledge workers employ to adhere to tasks, and we also categorized a host of environmental, personal and task-related factors that influence a knowledge worker's task adherence level.
Practical implications
This study offers a novel conceptualization of key determinants of knowledge workers' task management. Through insights into how knowledge workers purposefully prepare for and address potential interruption signals, as well as manage task switching from subsequent interruptions, managers may be able to design new work processes to improve task performance.
Originality/value
In a world of interruptions, task adherence adds to and clarifies a missing element in the time and task management dilemma that can enhance future efforts in designing strategies that enable knowledge workers to be more productive.
Objectives:
All organizations seek to minimize the risks that their operations pose to public safety. This task is especially significant if they deal with complex or hazardous technologies. Five decades of research in quantitative risk analysis have generated a set of risk management frameworks and practices that extend across a range of such domains. Here, we investigate the risk culture in three commercial enterprises that require exceedingly high standards of execution: radiation oncology, aviation, and nuclear power.
Methods:
One of the characteristics of high reliability organizations is their willingness to learn from other such organizations. We investigate the extent to which this is true by compiling a database of the major publications on risk within each of the three fields. We conduct a bibliographic coupling analysis on the combined database to identify connections among publications. This analysis reveals the strength of engagement across disciplinary boundaries and the extent of cross-adoption of best practices.
Results:
Our results show that radiation oncology is more insulated than the other two fields in its adoption and propagation of state-of-the-art risk management tools and frameworks that have transformed aviation and nuclear power into high reliability enterprises with actuarially low risk.
Conclusions:
Aviation and nuclear power have established risk cultures that cross-pollinate. In both nature and extent, we found a distinct difference in radiation oncology's engagement with the risk community, and it lags behind the other two fields in implementing best practices that might mitigate or eliminate risks to patient safety.
Background:
The majority of interruption research has focused on the undesirable effects of interruptions, especially related to errors during medication tasks. However, there may be times when interruptions result in positive effects by providing new information to a situation or preventing an error. The study of nurses' responses to interruptions is limited. Since interruptions cannot (and possibly should not) be avoided, a reasonable method for handling interruptions might be to learn how best to prepare for and manage interruption-prone situations.
Objectives:
The purpose of this study was to examine nurses' responses to interruptions and explore contextual factors that influence interruption management during medication tasks. This is a secondary analysis of an original study aimed at describing interruptions and nurses' responses to interruptions during routine nursing work on medical-surgical units.
Design and setting:
This descriptive study was conducted in 5 medical and/or surgical units at 2 acute care facilities in the southern United States, during weekday shifts.
Participants:
Twenty registered nurses participated in the study.
Methods:
The researcher observed nurse participants for at least 4.5 h during routine nursing work. Observation data were collected using time and motion software. Questionnaires were used to collect organizational, unit, and nurse level data. Interruptions during medication tasks were isolated and described as a secondary analysis.
Results:
Approximately 39% of medication tasks were interrupted. Following an interruption, nurses were more likely to suspend the medication task to attend to the interruption task (51.1%) or multitask (40.3%) than delay responding to the interruption until the medication task was complete (12.6%). Several characteristics of the interruption task, including task type, source, method, and communication intent were associated with nurses' responses at the level of statistical significance.
Conclusions:
The findings of this study reveal that nurses are interrupted frequently during medication tasks. The range of nurses' responses to interruptions was surprising in relation to the frequency with which nurses accepted the interruption task and the infrequency of delay responses. Additional study of nurses' responses to interruptions during medication tasks and the effect of different responses on patient safety outcomes is indicated.
Mulsemedia – multiple sensorial media – captures a wide variety of research efforts and applications. This paper presents a historic perspective on mulsemedia work and reviews current developments in the area. These take place across the traditional multimedia spectrum – from virtual reality applications to computer games-as well as efforts in the arts, gastronomy and therapy, to mention a few. We also describe standardization efforts, via the MPEG-V standard, and identify future developments and exciting challenges the community needs to overcome.
Operators working in complex data-rich environments, such as air traffic control, need to cope with considerable, often competing, attentional demands. They experience data overload in vision and audition, are required to timeshare tasks, and need to manage unexpected changes and events. Current technologies fail to support them in handling these challenges. This has led to breakdowns in performance and, in some cases, accidents. The goal of the present research is to develop novel informative types of notifications that minimize unnecessary attention switching and better assist operators in attention management. They inform operators about the presence of an interruption as well as its urgency and location, thereby helping operators avoid performance costs associated with attention switching. Based on the assertion that information can be better processed in parallel if distributed across modalities, these notifications employ and combine two under-utilized modalities: touch and peripheral vision. They are graded, i.e., their salience varies over time, to reflect changes in the importance of attending to an interruption. Gradation was implemented either intra- or crossmodally (i.e., within or across peripheral vision and touch). The proposed designs were expected to improve the detection of unexpected events and the decision making about attention switching without significantly affecting performance on ongoing primary tasks. A series of studies were conducted to a) identify effective tactile notification designs, b) compare the effectiveness of peripheral visual and tactile notifications, and c) evaluate 5 notification schemes that employ peripheral vision and touch as well as gradation. The findings from this research show significantly improved interruption management and overall task performance for all cued over uncued conditions, especially in the case of crossmodally graded notifications. They contribute to the knowledge base in multimodal information processing and display design as well as attention/ interruption management. This work goes beyond earlier studies by comparing the robustness of peripheral visual and tactile notifications under high workload and by exploring not only intra- but also crossmodal gradation in interruption cueing. At an applied level, it suggests ways in which future ATC operations can be supported more effectively to ensure the continued safety of the air transportation system.
The expected air traffic growth will introduce new tasks and automation technologies. As a result, the amount of mostly visual cockpit information will increase significantly, leading to more interruptions and risk of data overload. One promising means of addressing this challenge is through the use of multimodal interfaces which distribute information across sensory channels. To inform the design of such interfaces, a meta-analysis was conducted on the effectiveness and performance effects of auditory versus tactile interruption signals. From the 23 studies, ratio scores were computed to compare performance between the two modalities. The impact of 6 moderator variables was also examined. Overall, this analysis shows faster responses to tactile interruptions. However, more complex and very urgent interruption signals are better presented via the auditory modality. The findings add to our knowledge base in multimodal information processing and can inform modality choices in display design for complex data-rich domains.
At first glance it seems absurd that busy people doing important jobs should want their computers to interrupt them. Interruptions are disruptive and people need to concentrate to make good decisions. However, successful job perfor- mance also frequently depends on people's abilities to (a) constantly monitor their dynamically changing information environments, (b) collaborate and communi- cate with other people in the system, and (c) supervise background autonomous services. These critical abilities can require people to simultaneously query a large set of information sources, continuously monitor for important events, and re- spond to and communicate with other human operators. Automated monitoring
Research has shown that with practice people improve on most tasks. It has also been made clear that over time interruptions become less disruptive. It is unclear whether the reduction in interruption disruptiveness is due to a general practice effect or specific to the interruption/resumption process. In this experiment, participants performed three sessions of a task with one, two, or three of the sessions containing interruptions. We found that in addition to all participants showing primary task improvement, those with more exposure to interruptions also showed improvement in dealing with the interruptions. Specifically, participants with practice on only the primary task did not show improvement with the interruptions. These results suggest that the mitigations of the disruptions are directly related to people getting better at handling the interruptions.
In an investigation of task-set reconfiguration, participants switched between 2 tasks on every 2nd trial in 5 experiments and on every 4th trial in a final experiment. The tasks were to classify either the digit member of a pair of characters as even/odd or the letter member as consonant/vowel. As the response–stimulus interval increased up to 0.6 s, the substantial cost to performance of this predictable task-switch fell: Participants could partially reconfigure in advance of the stimulus. However, even with 1.2 s available for preparation, a large asymptotic reaction time (RT) cost remained, but only on the 1st trial of the new task. This is attributed to a component of reconfiguration triggered exogenously, i.e., only by a task-relevant stimulus. That stimuli evoke associated task-sets also explains why RT and switch costs increased when the stimulus included a character associated with the currently irrelevant task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Demanding work settings often require the deferral of intended actions. In 3 experiments, participants were to withhold a response until they encountered a task change (which occurred 5, 15, or 40 sec later). To approximate highly demanding settings, the experimenters sometimes divided attention during the delay period. During some of the delays the experimenters interrupted the participants with an additional task (Experiment 1). Demanding conditions as well as interruptions revealed rapid forgetting of intentions at levels that would be considered significant in applied settings. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that this rapid forgetting was not reduced by strategic rehearsal and implementation intention strategies. The results suggest that maintaining intentions over brief delays is not a trivial task for the human cognitive system.
We present a novel system for notification management and report results from two studies testing its performance and impact. The system uses statistical models to realize defer-to-breakpoint policies for managing notifications. The first study tested how well the models detect three types of breakpoints within novel task sequences. Results show that the models detect breakpoints reasonably well, but struggle to differentiate their type. Our second study explored effects of managing notifications with our system on users and their tasks. Results showed that scheduling notifications at breakpoints reduces frustration and reaction time relative to delivering them immediately. We also found that the relevance of notification content determines the type of breakpoint at which it should be delivered. The core concept of scheduling notifications at breakpoints fits well with how users prefer notifications to be managed. This indicates that users would likely adopt the use of notification management systems in practice.
We describe the design of ComTouch, a device that augments remote voice communication with touch, by converting hand pressure into vibrational intensity between users in real-time. The goal of this work is to enrich inter-personal communication by complementing voice with a tactile channel. We present preliminary user studies performed on 24 people to observe possible uses of the tactile channel when used in conjunction with audio. By recording and examining both audio and tactile data, we found strong relationships between the two communication channels. Our studies show that users developed an encoding system similar to that of Morse code, as well as three original uses: emphasis, mimicry, and turn-taking. We demonstrate the potential of the tactile channel to enhance the existing voice communication channel.
We are interested in desiging systems that support communication and collaboration among large groups of people over computing networks. We begin by asking what properties of the physical world support graceful human-human communication in face-to-face situations, and argue that it is possible to design digital systems that support coherent behavior by making participants and their activites visible to one another. We call such systems “socially translucent systems” and suggest that they have three characteristics—visbility, awareness, and accountability—which enable people to draw upon their experience and expertise to structure their interactions with one another. To motivate and focus our ideas we develop a vision of knowledge communities, conversationally based systems that support the creation, management and reuse of knowledge in a social context. We describe our experience in designing and deploying one layer of functionality for knowledge communities, embodied in a working system called “Barbie” and discuss research issues raised by a socially translucent approach to design.
This paper uses results of held studies from multiple domains to explore the cognitive activities involved in dynamic fault management. Fault diagnosis has a different character in dynamic fault management situations as compared to troubleshooting a broken device that has been removed from service. In fault management there is some underlying process (an engineered or physiological process that will be referred to as the monitored process) whose state changes over time. Faults disturb the monitored process and diagnosis goes on in parallel with responses to maintain process integrity and to correct the underlying problem. These situations frequently involve time pressure, multiple interacting goals, high consequences of failure, and multiple interleaved tasks. Typical examples of fields of practice where dynamic fault management occurs include flight deck operations in commercial aviation, control of space systems, anaesthetic management under surgery, and terrestrial process control. The point of departure is the 'alarm problem', which is used to introduce an attentional view of alarm systems as tools for supporting dynamic fault management. The work is based on the concept of directed attention-a cognitive function that inherently involves the co-ordination of multiple agents through the use of external media. Directed attention suggests several techniques for developing more effective alarm systems.
This study examined the effectiveness of using informative peripheral visual and tactile cues to support task switching and interruption management.
Effective support for the allocation of limited attentional resources is needed for operators who must cope with numerous competing task demands and frequent interruptions in data-rich, event-driven domains. One prerequisite for meeting this need is to provide information that allows them to make informed decisions about, and before, (re)orienting their attentional focus.
Thirty participants performed a continuous visual task. Occasionally, they were presented with a peripheral visual or tactile cue that indicated the need to attend to a separate visual task. The location, frequency, and duration parameters of these cues represented the domain, importance, and expected completion time, respectively, of the interrupting task.
The findings show that the informative cues were detected and interpreted reliably. Information about the importance (rather than duration) of the task was used by participants to decide whether to switch attention to the interruption, indicating adherence to experimenter instructions. Erroneous task-switching behavior (nonadherence to experimenter instructions) was mostly caused by misinterpretation of cues.
The effectiveness of informative peripheral visual and tactile cues for supporting interruption management was validated in this study. However, the specific implementation of these cues requires further work and needs to be tailored to specific domain requirements.
The findings from this research can inform the design of more effective notification systems for a variety of complex event-driven domains, such as aviation, medicine, or process control.
During the past two decades, the body of empirical research on warning design and evaluation has grown. Consequently, there are now basic principles and guidelines addressing warning design (e.g., signal words, color, symbols, and text/content), placement (e.g., location within product instructions), and how to enhance the usability of designs by considering factors internal to the user (e.g., beliefs, perceptions of risk, stress). Similarly, evaluation methods have been developed that can be used to measure the effectiveness of warnings such as the degree to which warnings are communicated to recipients and the degree to which they encourage or influence behavioral compliance. An overview of the empirical literature on warning guidelines and evaluation approaches is provided. Researchers, practitioners, and manufacturers can use these guidelines in various contexts to reduce the likelihood that injury and product damage from exposure to a hazard will occur.
Previous research has suggested that providing informative cues about interrupting stimuli aids management of multiple tasks. However, auditory and visual cues can be ineffective in certain situations. The objective of the present study was to explore whether attention-directing tactile cues aid or interfere with performance. A two-group posttest-only randomized experiment was conducted. Sixty-one participants completed a 30-min performance session consisting of aircraft-monitoring and gauge-reading computer tasks. Tactile signals were administered to a treatment group to indicate the arrival and location of interrupting tasks. Control participants had to remember to visually check for the interrupting tasks. Participants in the treatment group responded to more interrupting tasks and responded faster than did control participants. Groups did not differ on error rates for the interrupting tasks, performance of the primary task, or subjective workload perceptions. In the context of the tasks used in the present research, tactile cues allowed participants to effectively direct attention where needed without disrupting ongoing information processing. Tactile cues should be explored in a variety of other visual, interrupt-laden environments. Potential applications exist for aviation, user-interface design, vigilance tasks, and team environments.
Externally-imposed tasks frequently interrupt ongoing task performance in the commercial flight deck. While normally managed without consequence, basic research as well as aviation accident and incident investigations show that interruptions can negatively affect performance and safety. This research investigates the influence of interruption and interrupted task modality on pilot performance in a simulated commercial flight deck. Fourteen current commercial airline pilots performed approach scenarios in a fixed-base flight simulator. Air traffic control instructions, conveyed either aurally or visually (via a data link system) interrupted a visual task (obtaining information from the Flight Management System) and an auditory task (listening to the automated terminal information service recording). Some results confirm the hypothesized performance advantage of cross-modality conditions, more compelling nature of auditory interruptions, and interruption-resistance of auditory ongoing tasks. However, taken together, results suggest the four interaction conditions had different effects on pilot performance. These results have implications for the design of data link systems, and for facilitating interruption management through interface design, aiding, and training programs.
Instant messaging (IM) has grown rapidly to involve millions of users spanning a variety of platforms. This paper outlines two preliminary studies that examined the effects of IM notifications on ongoing desktop computer productivity tasks. Results from the studies show that the disruptiveness of IM to productivity tasks is reduced if the incoming message is highly relevant to the current task, or if messages are queued until certain key computing operations have been completed. User interface design principles for the control of messaging are proposed based on the results.
...................................................................................... xi 1. INTRODUCTION..................................................................... 1 Problem Statement..................................................................... 1 Research Goals........................................................................ 1 2. LITERATURE REVIEW............................................................ 3 Observing and Investigating Interruptions......................................... 3 Interruptions on the Flightdeck...................................................... 9 Summary............................................................................... 16 3. A THEORETICAL APPROACH TO INTERRUPTION MANAGEMENT... 18 A Model of Interruption Management.............................................. 18 Formalizing Interruption Management............................................. 21 A Framework for Relevant Research Perspectives.............................
full text can be downloaded from
https://human-factors.arc.nasa.gov/flightcognition/Publications/Dismukes&Nowinski_06.pdf
Operators in complex event-driven domains must coordinate competing attentional demands in the form of multiple tasks and interactions. This study examined the extent to which this requirement can be supported more effectively through informative interruption cueing (in this case, partial information about the nature of pending tasks). The 48 participants performed a visually demanding air traffic control (ATC) task. They were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 experimental groups that differed in the availability of information (not available, available upon request, available automatically) about the urgency and modality of pending interruption tasks. Within-subject variables included ATC-related workload and the modality, frequency, and priority of interruption tasks. The results show that advance knowledge about the nature of pending tasks led participants to delay visual interruption tasks the longest, which allowed them to avoid intramodal interference and scanning costs associated with performing these tasks concurrently with ATC tasks. The 3 experimental groups did not differ significantly in terms of their interruption task performance; however, the group that automatically received task-related information showed better ATC performance, thus experiencing a net performance gain. Actual or potential applications of this research include the design of interfaces in support of attention and interruption management in a wide range of event-driven environments.
In a likelihood alarm display (LAD) information about event likelihood is computed by an automated monitoring system and encoded into an alerting signal for the human operator. Operator performance within a dual-task paradigm was evaluated with two LADs: a color-coded visual alarm and a linguistically coded synthetic speech alarm. The operator's primary task was one of tracking; the secondary task was to monitor a four-element numerical display and determine whether the data arose from a 'signal' or 'no-signal' condition. A simulated 'intelligent' monitoring system alerted the operator to the likelihood of a signal. The results indicated that (1) automated monitoring systems can improve performance on primary and secondary tasks; (2) LADs can improve the allocation of attention among tasks and provide information integrated into operator decisions; and (3) LADs do not necessarily add to the operator's attentional load.
Two novel versions of a meta analysis were employed to assess the conditions of ongoing vehicle control task simulations in which (1) auditory presentation of an interrupting task were beneficial over visual presentations and (2) redundant (av) presentation was better than single modality presentation (providing redundancy gain). Altogether 29 studies were identified. The results revealed that the interrupting task benefited from auditory presentation, but the ongoing task (visual vehicle control task) generally did not. Performance of the visual interrupting task was slightly hindered by separation from the ongoing task. The redundancy analysis revealed that the interrupting task benefited from redundancy when it involved spatial localization and alerting and the accuracy of verbal communications; but suffered when speed of the verbal communications response was measured, and when the two visual channels were separated. Implications for multi-modal presentation of information on vehicle workstations are discussed.
This study examined the effects of several properties of a simulated in-vehicle-task (IVT) on interference with a concurrent tracking task, which simulated vehicle control. We compared auditory, visual and redundant delivery of IVT information, under conditions when the visual display was close and separated from the tracking task. In the first experiment we varied whether the tracking or the IVT was emphasized, and in the second experiment we added instruction in the use of redundant displays. IVT messages varied in length. The results from 20 participants in each experiment revealed (a) an effect of priority on the tracking task only, suggesting that separate resources were used for each task, (b) an advantage for auditory over visual delivery only when the visual display was separated, suggesting that visual costs relate to peripheral, not central resources, (c) no benefit and sometimes noticeable costs for the redundant display, compared to the single modality displays in experiment 1, and (d) an improvement in performance with redundant displays when training was given in experiment 2. The results have a positive bearing on the use of head-up (adjacent) displays for complex information.
We review both the theoretical and applied research on task interruptions. We provide a brief task analysis of interruptions and resumptions, discuss how and why they are disruptive, and show how multiple theories attempt to explain the interruption and resumption process. We also review a great deal of the empirical work and show how it fits into previous theoretical accounts. Finally, we discuss what factors make interruptions more or less disruptive as well as theory-based recommendations for reducing the disruptiveness of interruptions.
This report, using illustrations from the taxi-out phase of flight, is part of alarger study of the cognitive demands of concurrent task management. We also discuss potential countermeasures
The majority of empirical papers investigating the effect of interruption modality on primary task resumption have been grounded in Multiple Resource theory; this theory stresses the benefits of cross- modal information presentation. Alternatively, Altmann and Trafton's (2002) Memory for Goals theory suggests that maintaining an association between the suspended primary task goal and relevant environmental cues is critical to the task resumption process. Using reaction time and eye movement measures, the theoretical predictions of these two frameworks were empirically examined to determine whether interruption modality influences primary task resumption.
Respected technology commentators say that they now prefer instant messaging
(IM) over e-mail as their medium of choice for computer-mediated communication.1
The main reasons are that e-mail has become an overloaded channel for readers
and that you can’t be sure to get a timely response from the recipients
of your e-mail.
We describe the design of ComTouch, a device that augments
remote voice communication with touch, by converting hand
pressure into vibrational intensity between users in real-time. The
goal of this work is to enrich interpersonal communication by
complementing voice with a tactile channel.
We present preliminary user studies performed on 24 people to
observe possible uses of the tactile channel when used in
conjunction with audio. By recording and examining both audio
and tactile data, we found strong relationships between the two
communication channels. Our studies show that users developed
an encoding system similar to that of Morse code, as well as three
original uses: emphasis, mimicry, and turn-taking. We demonstrate
the potential of the tactile channel to enhance the existing voice
communication channel
Goal-directed cognition is often discussed in terms of specialized memory structures like the “goal stack.” The goal-activation model presented here analyzes goal-directed cognition in terms of the general memory constructs of activation and associative priming. The model embodies three predictive constraints: (1) the interference level, which arises from residual memory for old goals; (1) the strengthening constraint, which makes predictions about time to encode a new goal; and (3) the priming constraint, which makes predictions about the role of cues in retrieving pending goals. These constraints are formulated algebraically and tested through simulation of latency and error data from the Tower of Hanoi, a means-ends puzzle that depends heavily on suspension and resumption of goals. Implications of the model for understanding intention superiority, postcompletion error, and effects of task interruption are discussed.
A novel vibrotactile display type was investigated to determine the potential benefits for supporting the attention and task management of anesthesiologists.
Recent research has shown physiological monitoring and multitasking performance can benefit from displaying patient data via alarm-like tactile notifications and via continuously informing auditory displays (e.g., sonifications). The current study investigated a novel combination of these two approaches: continuously informing tactile displays.
A tactile alarm and two continuously informing tactile display designs were evaluated in an anesthesia induction simulation with anesthesiologists as participants. Several performance measures were collected for two tasks: physiological monitoring and anesthesia induction. A multitask performance score equivalently weighted components from each task, normalized across experimental scenarios. Subjective rankings of the displays were also collected.
Compared to the baseline (visual and auditory only) display configuration, each tactile display significantly improved performance in several objective measures, including multitask performance score. The continuously informing display that encoded the severity of patient health into the salience of its signals supported significantly better performance than the other two tactile displays. Contrasting the objective results, participants subjectively ranked the tactile alarm display highest.
Continuously informing tactile displays with alarm-like properties (e.g., salience mapping) can better support anesthesiologists' physiological monitoring and multitasking performance under the high task demands of anesthesia induction. Adaptive display mechanisms may improve user acceptance.
This study can inform display design to support multitasking performance of anesthesiologists in the clinical setting and other supervisory control operators in work domains characterized by high demands for visual and auditory resources.
Sketchy planners are designed to achieve goals in realistically complex, time-pressured, and uncertain task environments. However, the ability to manage multiple, potentially interacting tasks in such environments requires extensions to the functionality these systems typically provide. This paper identifies a number of factors affecting how interacting tasks should be pr ioritized, interrupted, and resumed, and then describes a sketchy planner called APEX that takes account of these factors when managing multiple tasks.
User attention is a scarce resource, and users are susceptible to interruption overload. Systems do not reason about the effects of interrupting a user during a task sequence. In this study, we measure effects of interrupting a user at different moments within task execution in terms of task performance, emotional state, and social attribution. Task models were developed using event perception techniques, and the resulting models were used to identify interruption timings based on a user's predicted cognitive load. Our results show that different interruption moments have different impacts on user emotional state and positive social attribution, and suggest that a system could enable a user to maintain a high level of awareness while mitigating the disruptive effects of interruption. We discuss implications of these results for the design of an attention manager.
This paper describes exploratory studies of interruption modalities and disruptiveness. Five interruption modalities were compared: heat, smell, sound, vibration, and light. Much more notable than the differences between modalities was the differences between people. We found that subjects' sensitiveness depended on their previous life exposure to the modalities. Individual differences greatly control the effect of interrupting stimuli. We show that is possible to build a multimodal adaptive interruption interface, such interfaces would dynamically select the output interruption modality to use based on its effectiveness on a particular user.
Previous research into providing interpersonal technology-mediated interruption management support has predominantly been conducted from a paradigmatic standpoint that focused on modeling the context of the person being interrupted (interruptee) such as his/her mental workload, activity and location as a means to identify opportune/inopportune moments for communication. However, the utility of this approach and the associated design implications are questioned by the interruption value evaluation paradigm, which holds that interpersonal interruption management decisions are often made by people assessing factors such as who the interruption is from and what it is about (the relational context). To assess the validity of the competing assumptions underlining these paradigms about everyday interpersonal interruption management, a field study of interruption management practices in everyday cell phone use was conducted. Analysis of 1201 incoming calls from our experience sampling method study of cell phone use shows that “who” is calling is used most of the time (87.4%) by individuals to make deliberate call handling decisions (N=834), in contrast to the interruptee’s current local social (34.9%) or cognitive (43%) contexts. Building on these findings, we present a theoretical framework that aids in understanding the design space of interruption management tools that focus on reducing uncertainty of the interruption context to improve interruption management decisions.
The present study developed and validated a stochastic model of overt attention within a visual workspace.
Technical specifications and recommended practices for the design of visual warning systems emphasize the role of alert salience. Task demands and display context can modulate alert noticeability, however, meaning that salience alone does not guarantee attention capture.
A stochastic model integrated elements from existing models of visual attention to predict attentional behavior in dynamic environments.Validation studies tested the predictions of the new model against scanning data from a high-fidelity simulator study and behavioral data from an alert detection experiment.
The model accurately predicted the steady-state distribution of attention within a simulated cockpit as well as the effects of color similarity, eccentricity, and dynamic visual noise on miss rates and response times in the alert detection task.
The model successfully predicts attentional behavior in complex visual workspaces with the use of parameter values selected by either the modeler or a subject matter expert.
The model provides a tool to test the effectiveness of visual alerts in various display configurations and with varying task demands.
Researchers in healthcare have begun to investigate interruptions extensively, given evidence for the adverse effects of work interruptions in other domains and given the highly interruptive hospital environment. In this paper, we reviewed literature on interruptions in critical care and medication dispensing settings in search of evidence for a relationship between interruptions and adverse events.
The literature search included the databases MEDLINE, CINAHL+Pre CINHAL, Health Sources: Nursing Academic Edition, EMBASE, PsycINFO, ISI Web of Science and Ergonomics Abstracts. The paper titles and abstracts were subsequently reviewed. After the initial search, we reviewed paper titles and abstracts to define the subset for review.
We currently lack evidence in healthcare of the extent to which interruptions lead to adverse effects. The lack of evidence may be due to the descriptive rather than causal nature of most studies, the lack of theory motivating investigations of the relationship, the fact that healthcare is a complex and varied domain, and inadequate conceptualizations of accident aetiology. We identify two recent accident theories in which the relationship between activity and medical errors is complex, indicating that even when it is sought, causal evidence is hard to find.
Future research on interruptions in healthcare settings should focus on the following. First, prospective memory research and distributed cognition can provide a theoretical background for understanding the impact of interruptions and so could provide guidance for future empirical research on interruptions and the planning of actions in healthcare. Second, studying how interruptions are successfully rather than unsuccessfully overcome may better help us understand their effects. Third, because interruptions almost always have positive and adverse effects, more appropriate dependent variables could be chosen.
Although interruptions have been shown in aviation and other work settings to result in error with serious and sometimes fatal consequences, little is known about interruptions in the emergency department (ED). The authors conducted an observational, time-motion task-analysis study to determine the number and types of interruptions in the ED.
Emergency physicians were observed in three EDs located in an urban teaching hospital, a suburban private teaching hospital, and a rural community hospital. A single investigator followed emergency staff physicians for 180-minute periods and recorded tasks, interruptions, and breaks-intask. An "interruption" was defined as any event that briefly required the attention of the subject but did not result in switching to a new task. A "break-intask" was defined as an event that required the attention of the physician for more than 10 seconds and subsequently resulted in changing tasks.
The mean (+/-SD) total number of patients seen at all three sites during the 180-minute study period was 12.1 +/- 3.7 patients (range 5-20). Physicians performed a mean of 67.6 +/- 15.7 tasks per study period. The mean number of interruptions per 180-minute study period was 30.9 +/- 9.7 and the mean number of breaks-in-task was 20.7 +/- 6.3. Both the number of interruptions (r = 0.63; p < 0.001) and the number of breaks-in-task (r = 0.56; p < 0.001) per observation period were positively correlated with the average number of patients simultaneously managed.
Emergency physicians are "interruptdriven." Emergency physicians are frequently interrupted and many interruptions result in breaks-in-task.
Operators in complex event-driven domains must coordinate competing attentional demands in the form of multiple tasks and interactions. This study examined the extent to which this requirement can be supported more effectively through informative interruption cueing (in this case, partial information about the nature of pending tasks). The 48 participants performed a visually demanding air traffic control (ATC) task. They were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 experimental groups that differed in the availability of information (not available, available upon request, available automatically) about the urgency and modality of pending interruption tasks. Within-subject variables included ATC-related workload and the modality, frequency, and priority of interruption tasks. The results show that advance knowledge about the nature of pending tasks led participants to delay visual interruption tasks the longest, which allowed them to avoid intramodal interference and scanning costs associated with performing these tasks concurrently with ATC tasks. The 3 experimental groups did not differ significantly in terms of their interruption task performance; however, the group that automatically received task-related information showed better ATC performance, thus experiencing a net performance gain. Actual or potential applications of this research include the design of interfaces in support of attention and interruption management in a wide range of event-driven environments.
A vision of the future of intraoperative monitoring for anesthesia is presented-a multimodal world based on advanced sensing capabilities. I explore progress towards this vision, outlining the general nature of the anesthetist's monitoring task and the dangers of attentional capture. Research in attention indicates different kinds of attentional control, such as endogenous and exogenous orienting, which are critical to how awareness of patient state is maintained, but which may work differently across different modalities. Four kinds of medical monitoring displays are surveyed: (1) integrated visual displays, (2) head-mounted displays, (3) advanced auditory displays and (4) auditory alarms. Achievements and challenges in each area are outlined. In future research, we should focus more clearly on identifying anesthetists' information needs and we should develop models of attention in different modalities and across different modalities that are more capable of guiding design.
Results of past research on physician-patient interruption present an inconclusive picture. This study reconceptualizes interruption into cooperative and intrusive categories. Thirty physician-patient interviews, 13 male/male and 17 male/female, were audiotaped and microanalyzed. It was found that physicians did not interrupt patients more or vice versa. Rather, physicians and patients interrupted differently, the former more intrusively and the latter, more cooperatively. Furthermore, physicians did not dominate speaking turns nor speak more words than patients, as previously believed. We argue that their difference may not be measured by the number of words or speaking turns because it is embedded in their respective communication style. It was also found that female patients exhibited eleven times as much cooperative interruptions as did male patients. When physicians interrupted patients, they were unsuccessful only 6% of the time. When patients interrupted physicians, they were unsuccessful 32% of the time. The results of this study point out the necessity to reconceptualize interruptions in physician-patient interviews.
The author discusses enhanced robustness for three multimodal interface types: speech and pen, speech and lip movements, and multibiometric (physiological and behavioral) input.
An approach of the American Psychological Association (APA)VDivision 21 (Applied Experimental and Engineering Psychology) She received numerous awards, including the HFES Jerome H. Ely Human Factors Article AwardTurning Goals Into Reality
- T Erickson
- W Kellogg
T. Erickson and W. Kellogg, ''An approach of the American Psychological Association (APA)VDivision 21 (Applied Experimental and Engineering Psychology). She received numerous awards, including the HFES Jerome H. Ely Human Factors Article Award (2008), a ''Turning Goals Into Reality'' (TGIR) Award from NASA–Glenn Research Center (2001), and the 1998 National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Award. Sarter: Multimodal Support For Interruption Management: Models, Empirical Findings, and Design Recommendations 2112 Proceedings of the IEEE | Vol. 101, No. 9, September 2013
Informing multimodal interface design using a novel meta-analytical technique
- S Lu
- C Wickens
- J Prinet
- S Hutchins
- N Sarter
- A Sebok
S. Lu, C. Wickens, J. Prinet, S. Hutchins, N. Sarter, and A. Sebok, ''Informing multimodal interface design using a novel meta-analytical technique,'' manuscript under review, 2012.
Taking memory out of the laboratory
- A Baddeley
- A Wilkins
Advances in Human Performance and Cognitive Engineering Research
- N Sarter
- E Salas
Wiegmann and A. Kirlik From Theory to Practice
- K Dismukes
- J Nowinski
- A F Kramer
Sarter and A. Sebok Informing multimodal interface design using a novel meta-analytical technique
- S Lu
- C Wickens
- J Prinet
- S Hutchins