Managing Mediated Interruptions in Manufacturing: Selected Strategies Used for Coping with Cognitive Load

Abstract

Interruption research can provide human factors and applied ergonomics with an enhanced understanding of how to notify assembly workers in manufacturing. The paper investigates and analyzes what happens in the transition phase when resuming to the primary task; to understand what kind of support assembly workers may need during this critical and cognitively demanding phase—so that the interval between the interrupted and the primary tasks can be shortened to increase efficiency, during mediated interruptions. Subjects were interrupted during primary assembly tasks via a mobile device which delivered various notifications. We focused on the selected cognitive strategies applied when decreasing the subjects’ experienced cognitive load as they resumed to their primary task. Based on the obtained results, some recommendations from a distributed cognition perspective are provided when analyzing “cognitive workscapes.”