Understanding the Impact of Interruptions on Knowledge Work : An Exploratory Neuroimaging Study

This paper explores how technologies can interrupt concentration, focus and attention of knowledge workers. The mechanisms by which an interruption takes attention away and the task performance decreases are unknown. The paper explores this impact of interruptions through neuroimaging. Subjects were given a reading task and subjected to a series of randomly timed audio interruptions. Using an EEG measurement device, we recorded their brain waves. Consistent with the literature, we found interruptions significantly increased task completion time and decreased task performance. We found activities in the frontal and temporal lobes of the participants changed or increased due to interruptions. In addition, increased activities in the frontal regions after an interruption appear to lead to better performance. The results suggest application developers to consider underlying mechanisms of processing interruptions