The influence of success and failure on the resumption of an interrupted task
Nowlis crossed three kinds of feedback, success, neutral and failure, on an interrupted cogwheel puzzle and on a jigsaw offered afterwards, in nine groups of 20 male undergraduates at Yale. Feedback on the interrupted puzzle itself lowered resumption relative to a neutral interruption, failure slightly more than success. Feedback on the second task had the larger effect: combined resumption was about 52 per cent after success, 28 per cent after neutral feedback and 23 per cent after failure, with failure and neutral not differing significantly. Participants tended to prefer, and rate as easier, the task that had gone well, and a wait of one to fifteen minutes made no meaningful difference. Nowlis offered a goal-response account and treated it as only partly tested.
Nowlis crossed three kinds of feedback, success, neutral and failure, on an interrupted cogwheel puzzle and on a jigsaw offered afterwards, in nine groups of 20 male undergraduates at Yale. Feedback on the interrupted puzzle itself lowered resumption relative to a neutral interruption, failure slightly more than success. Feedback on the second task had the larger effect: combined resumption was about 52 per cent after success, 28 per cent after neutral feedback and 23 per cent after failure, with failure and neutral not differing significantly. Participants tended to prefer, and rate as easier, the task that had gone well, and a wait of one to fifteen minutes made no meaningful difference. Nowlis offered a goal-response account and treated it as only partly tested.
Written from the full text, journal manuscript PDF, 2026-10-31.
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Nowlis, H. H. (1941). The influence of success and failure on the resumption of an interrupted task. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 28(4), 304-325. doi:10.1037/h0055389 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0055389