The interruption of tasks
Prentice's 1944 critical review of research on interrupted tasks describes resumption as a dependable observation. It reports that the Berlin school read resumption and enhanced recall as products of one tension system and questions that link, noting a children's puzzle study in which resumption and recall of completed tasks ran inversely. It records Ovsiankina's finding that ambitious participants resumed tasks promising success and avoided those promising failure, and concludes that resumption depends on whether the route to the goal looks clear, blocked or threatening and on level of aspiration.
Prentice's 1944 critical review of research on interrupted tasks describes resumption as a dependable observation. It reports that the Berlin school read resumption and enhanced recall as products of one tension system and questions that link, noting a children's puzzle study in which resumption and recall of completed tasks ran inversely. It records Ovsiankina's finding that ambitious participants resumed tasks promising success and avoided those promising failure, and concludes that resumption depends on whether the route to the goal looks clear, blocked or threatening and on level of aspiration.
Written from the full text, journal PDF, 2026-10-31.
What our sources record
Recorded when this source was checked, figures included, with page references and quotation marks removed.
Prentice, W. C. H. (1944). “The interruption of tasks.” Psychological Review, 51(6), 329-340. doi:10.1037/h0059614 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0059614