PubMed Health⌕ Search
Home/Archive/PubMed

PubMed · 10320869

Task interruption and its effects on memory.

M B Edwards·S D Gronlund
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

We investigated the recovery from memory of a primary task after an interruption. If the primary task lacked associative support among its task components, recovery was more difficult following an interruption that overlapped either completely or partially in the amount of information shared with the primary task (an interruption-similarity effect). In addition, memory for completed actions was superior to memory for impending unfinished actions. However, if the primary task had associative support among its task components, there was no adverse effect of interruption similarity, and completed and unfinished actions were recalled equally well. We explore possible explanations and implications of these results.

Explore related subjects

AttentionHumansMemoryMental RecallTime FactorsJournal Article

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

M B Edwards, S D Gronlund. 1998. Task interruption and its effects on memory.. https://doi.org/10.1080/741943375

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

PubMed2000

The neural correlates of orienting: an integration of fMRI and skin conductance orienting.

In fMRI studies, the averaging of neural activity across multiple trials might obscure important psychophysiological subprocesses. The orienting response (OR) is a distinctive subprocess signalling the active orientation of attention towards potentially significant events. We sought to elucidate fMRI activity associated with visual stimuli that did or did not evoke simultaneously recorded electrodermal ORs (using customised skin conductance recording). 'With-OR' stimuli were associated with significant activity in the hippocampus, anterior cingulate and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Averaged analysis revealed activity only in the expected visual circuits. Our results suggest that potentially significant stimuli (with-OR) activate different functional networks to familiar (without-OR) stimuli, and that orienting may therefore be an informative subprocess to consider in cognitive fMRI studies.

Attention↗
PubMed2000

How automatically is meaning accessed: a review of the effects of attention on semantic processing.

This chapter attempts to review electrophysiological data that stand at the intersection of two large domains of research: selective attention and semantic processing. Analogous behavioral studies will be discussed as a way of introducing the reader to some of the more complex paradigms, and providing convergent evidence. The focus of this review will be on data that add special insight into the issue of semantic processing in the absence of attention. However, paradigms which allow semantic activation in the absence of awareness will also be examined as these studies have also yielded data concerning automatic semantic processing. It is concluded that a great deal of semantic processing can occur in the absence of attention as well as in the absence of awareness.

Attention↗