A Three-Second Interruption Can Double Task Errors, Study Finds

Brief interruptions of only a few seconds can significantly disrupt a person's place in a multi-step task, according to a 2014 study by researchers at Michigan State University and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. Participants who were briefly interrupted were about twice as likely to lose track of the correct sequence, and longer pauses tripled these errors. The researchers attribute this to working memory, where activation that primes the next step fades once focus is pulled away. A related 2009 study by Sophie Leroy describes 'attention residue,' in which unfinished tasks continue to occupy thinking and impair performance on what comes next. The article links these findings to software development, where interruptions can disrupt complex debugging and code reviews.