Cognitive Scaffold

Preparing your thinking workspace

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MENTAL MODEL · M6217

Interrupt

Interrupt
CreateHigh supportDesign Thinking
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Version 1.0.0 · Updated 2026-07-30

CORE DEFINITION

A hardware or software signal that forces the CPU to pause its current task and switch to handling a more urgent event (such as a mouse click or keyboard input). After processing, it returns to the original task.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

Design of response mechanisms. Life is full of interrupts. Efficient people do not block all interrupts (that is isolation), but design efficient 'interrupt service routines' (ISR): quickly assess priority, either handle immediately or push to queue, then quickly restore context.

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Anchor fast decisions

After a task is interrupted, resuming requires rebuilding context. The cost of switching and forgetting makes the interrupt cost higher than the apparent time, and frequent interrupts severely reduce peak performance.

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Source support: Explicit

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    en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterruptZH · Explicit
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