Will Break for Productivity: Generalized Symptoms of Cognitive Depletion
This work addresses cognitive overload in knowledge workers to reduce stress and maintain performance, but it appears incremental as it builds on previous findings without introducing a new paradigm.
The paper tackles the problem of predicting cognitive depletion in knowledge workers to optimize break timing, proposing a unified analytical model that defines symptoms and their impact on productivity without requiring self-assessment.
In this work, we address the symptoms of cognitive depletion as they relate to generalized knowledge workers. We unify previous findings within a single analytical model of cognitive depletion. Our purpose is to develop a model that will help us predict when a person has reached a sufficient state of cognitive depletion such that taking a break or some other restorative action will benefit both his or her own wellbeing and the quality of his or her performance. We provide a definition of each symptom in our model as well as the effect it would have on a knowledge worker's ability to work productively. We discuss methods to detect each symptom that do not require self assessment. Understanding symptoms of cognitive depletion provides the ability to support human knowledge workers by reducing the stress involved with cognitive and work overload while maintaining or improving the quality of their performance.