Affective Interruptions Impair Task Performance Less Than Neutral Ones Across Age and Task Demands
研究发现，相比中性中断，情感性中断虽然导致更长的恢复时间，但能提高中断后的任务准确性，对中老年人还有速度优势，为设计更友好的中断提示提供了依据。
Objective This study investigated how affective characteristics of interruptions (valence and arousal) influence task resumptions and post-interruption performance in younger and middle-aged/older adults under different task complexity. Background Interruptions are pervasive in digital environments and often impair ongoing task performance. Although prior studies have emphasized the influence of task-related factors, the affective properties of interruptions remain understudied. Age-related differences in cognitive and emotional processing may further modulate the impacts of affective interruptions. Method Across three experiments ( N = 179), younger and middle-aged/older participants performed simple and complex tasks that were interrupted by static images or short videos differing in valence and arousal. Behavioral outcomes included resumption lag, task completion time, and accuracy. Effects were synthesized using meta-analytic estimates across experiments. Results Affective (vs. neutral) interruptions resulted in longer resumption lags. However, they were also linked to higher post-interruption accuracy, and in some cases faster task speed. Speed advantages were most evident for high-arousal positive interruptions and primarily in middle-aged/older adults. Age differences were robust for overall interruption cost, but age did not change the direction of affective influences, though affective–neutral performance differences were larger in older adults. Conclusion Affective interruptions do not uniformly increase disruption. Despite longer resumption times, they are associated with relatively preserved or improved post-interruption accuracy compared with neutral interruptions, with conditional speed benefits for older adults. Application Designing interruptions with attention to affective properties may help reduce post-interrupt performance decrements, particularly for older users, while considering potential trade-offs in resumption time.