The Effects of Visual or Auditory Interruption on Task Performance - Combination of Behavior Data and Eye Movement Analysis

Abstract

Interruptions are prevalent phenomena in complex human-computer interaction. And various studies have proved that interruptions have negative effects on user performance. Therefore, study on the law of interruption in the field of human-computer interaction has certain guiding significance of enhancing working efficiency. Our study examined the effects of interruption modality (visual or auditory) on performance of primary task (visual) and interruption task itself to determine which modality was less disruptive. An experiment was carried out to explore the difference between two interruption modalities. The results demonstrated that different interruption modalities caused similar disruptive effects on performance of primary task, but auditory modality was more disruptive than visual modality on performance of interruption task. Our findings indicated that intra-modal interruption was a better way than cross-modal interruption in visual primary task.

Keywords: Interruption Modality, Task Performance, Working Memory, Eye Tracking

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe100948