Studies of working memory in interrupted human-computer interaction

Distraction in the workplace is increasingly more common in the information age. Several tasks and sources of information compete for a worker's limited cognitive capacities in human-computer interaction (HCI). In some situations even very brief interruptions can have detrimental effects on memory. Nevertheless, in other situations where persons are continuously interrupted, virtually no interruption costs emerge. This dissertation attempts to reveal the mental conditions and causalities differentiating the two outcomes. The explanation, building on the theory of long-term working memory (LTWM; Ericsson and Kintsch, 1995), focuses on the active, skillful aspects of human cognition that enable the storage of task information beyond the temporary and unstable storage provided by short-term working memory (STWM). Its key postulate is called a retrieval structure an abstract, hierarchical knowledge representation built into long-term memory that can be utilized to encode, update, and retrieve products of cognitive processes carried out during skilled task performance. If certain criteria of practice and task processing are met, LTWM allows for the storage of large representations for long time periods, yet these representations can be accessed with the accuracy, reliability, and speed typical of STWM. The main thesis of the dissertation is that the ability to endure interruptions depends on the efficiency in which LTWM can be recruited for maintaing information. An observational study and a field experiment provide ecological evidence for this thesis. Mobile users were found to be able to carry out heavy interleaving and sequencing of tasks while interacting, and they exhibited several intricate time-sharing strategies to orchestrate interruptions in a way sensitive to both external and internal demands. Interruptions are inevitable, because they arise as natural consequences of the top-down and bottom-up control of multitasking. In this process the function of LTWM is to keep some representations ready for reactivation and others in a more passive state to prevent interference. The psychological reality of the main thesis received confirmatory evidence in a series of laboratory experiments. They indicate that after encoding into LTWM, task representations are safeguarded from interruptions, regardless of their intensity, complexity, or pacing. However, when LTWM cannot be deployed, the problems posed by interference in long-term memory and the limited capacity of the STWM surface. A major contribution of the dissertation is the analysis of when users must resort to poorer maintenance strategies, like temporal cues and STWM-based rehearsal. First, one experiment showed that task orientations can be associated with radically different patterns of retrieval cue encodings. Thus the nature of the processing of the interface determines which features will be available as retrieval cues and which must be maintained by other means. In another study it was demonstrated that if the speed of encoding into LTWM, a skill-dependent parameter, is slower than the processing speed allowed for by the task, interruption costs emerge. Contrary to the predictions of competing theories, these costs turned out to involve intrusions in addition to omissions. Finally, it was learned that in rapid visually oriented interaction, perceptual-procedural expectations guide task resumption, and neither STWM nor LTWM are utilized due to the fact that access is too slow. These findings imply a change in thinking about the design of interfaces. Several novel principles of design are presented, basing on the idea of supporting the deployment of LTWM in the main task.

From Creative Ideas to New Emerging Ventures: Entrepreneurial Processes among Finnish Design Entrepreneurs

This study focuses on self-employed industrial designers and how they emerge new venture ideas. More specifically, this study strives to determine what design entrepreneurs do when they create new venture ideas, how venture ideas are nurtured into being, and how the processes are organized to bring such ideas to the market in the given industrial context. In contemporary times when the concern for the creative class is peaking, the research and business communities need more insight of the kind that this study provides, namely how professionals may contribute to their entrepreneurial processes and other agents’ business processes. On the one hand, the interviews underlying this study suggest that design entrepreneurs may act as reactive service providers who are appointed by producers or marketing parties to generate product-related ideas on their behalf. On the other hand, the interviews suggest that proactive behaviour that aims on generating own venture ideas, may force design entrepreneurs to take considerable responsibility in organizing their entrepreneurial processes. Another option is that they strive to bring venture ideas to the market in collaboration, or by passing these to other agents’ product development processes. Design entrepreneurs’ venture ideas typically emerge from design related starting points and observations. Product developers are mainly engaged with creating their own ideas, whereas service providers refer mainly to the development of other agents’ venture ideas. In contrast with design entrepreneurs, external actors commonly emphasize customer demand as their primary source for new venture ideas, as well as development of these in close interaction with available means of production and marketing. Consequently, design entrepreneurs need to address market demand since without sales their venture ideas may as well be classified as art. In case, they want to experiment with creative ideas, then there should be another source of income to support this typically uncertain and extensive process. Currently, it appears like a lot of good venture ideas and resources are being wasted, when venture ideas do not suite available production or business procedures. Sufficient communication between design entrepreneurs and other agents would assist all parties in developing production efficient and distributable venture ideas. Overall, the findings suggest that design entrepreneurs are often involved simultaneously in several processes that aim at emerging new product related ventures. Consequently, design entrepreneurship is conceptualized in this study as a dual process. This implies that design entrepreneurs can simultaneously be in charge of their entrepreneurial processes, as they operate as resources in other agents’ business processes. The interconnection between activities and agents suggests that these kinds of processes tend to be both complex and multifaceted to their nature.