Do Interruptions Affect Writing and Reading?

Abstract

This thesis showcases a series of studies that investigated whether interruptions disrupt writing and reading. Although time- and error-based metrics have often been used to determine how interruptions disrupt performance, it is likely that they do not capture all aspects of disruption. Writing and reading are two such domains that may be better suited to the use of other metrics of quality. Here I show that interruptions reduce the quality of written work, reduce the number of words written while writing, disrupt reading comprehension, and disrupt recognition following reading for low working memory capacity individuals. This thesis demonstrates that metrics beyond time and errors can be used to understand the impact of interruptions on human performance.