Zeigarnik Effect

While it's a cool read, the lack of inline citations in the article make me lose faith in it. There are some citations at the bottom, but they aren't inline wiki markup.

The actual effect seems to be written in the form of cause (task interruption) and effect (overestimation of time) but then takes a leap to say that the overestimation was due to frustration and failure.

With only two studies, and both showing different traits associated with interruption, it doesn't seem to be a universally accepted correlation.

I've posted about it a few years ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6689741

original article: http://blog.sandglaz.com/zeigarnik-effect-scientific-key-to-...

Financial Times > Tim Harford > Multi-tasking: how to survive in the 21st century (2015-09-03)

Try this:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/bbf1f84a-51c2-11e5-8642-453585f2cf...

or this:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KxM7NvY...

I shall see whether I feel compelled to read the end of this article. I got to roughly the bit where I found out what it is, the desire to complete an unfinished task.

If you see this before reading the article, give it a try.

User interfaces that don't provide breadcrumbs, back buttons, wizard-steps, or a means to "get back" to an initial state are said to evoke the Zeigarnik effect.