Interruptions are an inescapable reality in our lives and they sometimes lead to unfortunate consequences. Most of the interruptions literature focuses on aspects of the interruption task that makes them more or less disruptive to performance. However, it is important to consider what might make a person resilient to the deleterious effects of interruptions. This research seeks to explore the individual performer and the specific cognitive aspects that might make someone better or worse at dealing with an interruption. Based on the current theory, we predicted that participants with better working memory capacity and spatial abilities would be faster at resuming an interrupted task than those who scored lower on those measures. We found that those that scored higher on the working memory capacity measure were faster at resuming from an interruption and those that scored higher on one of the spatial ability measures (mental rotation) were faster at resuming. The paper folding task measure of spatial ability did not predict interrupted task performance.

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Quick vaccine rollouts are crucial for a strong economic recovery, but vaccine hesitancy could prolong the pandemic and the need for social distancing and lockdowns. We use individual-level data from nationally representative surveys developed by YouGov and Imperial College London to empirically examine the determinants of vaccine hesitancy across 17 countries and over time. Vaccine demand depends on demographic features such as age and gender, but also on perceptions about the severity of COVID-19 and side effects of the vaccine, vaccine access, compliance with protective behaviors, overall trust in government, and how information is shared with peers. We then introduce vaccine hesitancy into an extended SIR model to assess its impact on pandemic dynamics. We find that hesitancy can increase COVID-19 infections and deaths significantly if it slows down vaccine rollouts, but has a smaller impact if all willing adults can be immunized rapidly.