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- Interruption science is the interdisciplinary scientific study concerned with how interruptions affect human performance, and the development of interventions to ameliorate the disruption caused by interruptions. Interruption science is a branch of human factors psychology and emerged from human–computer interaction and cognitive psychology. Being ubiquitous in life and an intuitive concept, there are few formal definitions of interruption. A commonly agreed upon definition proposed by Boehm-Davis and Remington specifies an interruption is "the suspension of one stream of work prior to completion, with the intent of returning to and completing the original stream of work". Interruptions are considered to be on the spectrum of multitasking and in this context referred to as sequential multitasking. The distinguishing feature of an interruption (see Task switching (psychology), concurrent multitasking) is the presence of primary task which must be returned to upon completing a secondary interrupting task. For instance, talking on the phone while driving is generally considered an instance of concurrent multitasking; stopping a data entry task to check emails is generally considered an instance of an interruption. Interruptions, in almost all instances, are disruptive to performance and induce errors. Therefore, interruption science typically examines the effects of interruptions in high-risk workplace environments such as aviation, medicine, and vehicle operation in which human error can have serious, potentially disastrous consequences. Interruptions are also explored in less safety-critical workplaces, such as offices, where interruptions can induce stress, anxiety, and poorer performance. (en)
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