Task interruption and its effects on memory.

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.