We begin by noting that, in addition to the more or less established trends of cognitive modelling and neurolinguistic or behavioural experimentation, a more recent orientation in research on interpreting (IR) as a complex cognitive process is functional neuroimaging. We then describe current brain imaging methods — electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography, positron emission tomography, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and near-infrared spectroscopy — and provide selected examples of their use in language processing and interpreting research, accompanied with brief evaluations of their applicability for IR. In spite of limitations related to invasiveness, temporal resolution, and experimental design, positron emission tomography (PET) is potentially the strongest tool for investigations of the neural substrates of ongoing interpreting performance. Finally, we describe what we believe is the first published study of speech shadowing and professional simultaneous interpreting using PET. Shadowing of the non-dominant language produces more extensive activations in the temporal cortex and motor regions than shadowing of the dominant language, which suggests that even in the simultaneous repetition task, the less automatized language recruits more neural resources. Simultaneous interpreting, whether into the dominant or into the non-dominant language, predominantly activates left-hemispheric structures. Activation patterns are, however, clearly modulated by the direction of interpreting, with more extensive activation during interpreting into the non-dominant language.
2017. Interpretation and Cognition. In The Handbook of Translation and Cognition, ► pp. 445 ff.
Chou, Isabelle, Kanglong Liu & Nan Zhao
2021. Effects of Directionality on Interpreting Performance: Evidence From Interpreting Between Chinese and English by Trainee Interpreters. Frontiers in Psychology 12
García, Adolfo M.
2013. Brain activity during translation: A review of the neuroimaging evidence as a testing ground for clinically-based hypotheses. Journal of Neurolinguistics 26:3 ► pp. 370 ff.
He, Yan & Yinying Hu
2022. Functional Connectivity Signatures Underlying Simultaneous Language Translation in Interpreters and Non-Interpreters of Mandarin and English: An fNIRS Study. Brain Sciences 12:2 ► pp. 273 ff.
He, Yan, Yinying Hu, Yaxi Yang, Defeng Li & Yi Hu
2021. Optical Mapping of Brain Activity Underlying Directionality and Its Modulation by Expertise in Mandarin/English Interpreting. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 15
He, Yan, Meng-Yun Wang, Defeng Li & Zhen Yuan
2017. Optical mapping of brain activation during the English to Chinese and Chinese to English sight translation. Biomedical Optics Express 8:12 ► pp. 5399 ff.
Hervais-Adelman, Alexis & Laura Babcock
2020. The neurobiology of simultaneous interpreting: Where extreme language control and cognitive control intersect. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 23:4 ► pp. 740 ff.
Hervais-Adelman, Alexis, Barbara Moser-Mercer & Narly Golestani
2015. Brain functional plasticity associated with the emergence of expertise in extreme language control. NeuroImage 114 ► pp. 264 ff.
Hervais-Adelman, Alexis, Barbara Moser-Mercer, Christoph M. Michel & Narly Golestani
2015. fMRI of Simultaneous Interpretation Reveals the Neural Basis of Extreme Language Control. Cerebral Cortex 25:12 ► pp. 4727 ff.
Hu, Ting, Xinyu Wang & Haiming Xu
2022. Eye-Tracking in Interpreting Studies: A Review of Four Decades of Empirical Studies. Frontiers in Psychology 13
Pérez, Gonzalo, Eugenia Hesse, Martín Dottori, Agustina Birba, Lucía Amoruso, Miguel Martorell Caro, Agustín Ibáñez & Adolfo M. García
2022. The Bilingual Lexicon, Back and Forth: Electrophysiological Signatures of Translation Asymmetry. Neuroscience 481 ► pp. 134 ff.
2021. Effects of training of shadowing and reading aloud of second language on working memory and neural systems. Brain Imaging and Behavior 15:3 ► pp. 1253 ff.
Yang, Fan, Fen Gao & Kexin Zhang
2023. Impacts of Directionality on Disfluency of English-Chinese Two-Way Sight Translation. International Journal of Translation, Interpretation, and Applied Linguistics 5:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Zheng, Binghan, Sandra Báez, Li Su, Xia Xiang, Susanne Weis, Agustín Ibáñez & Adolfo M. García
2020. Semantic and attentional networks in bilingual processing: fMRI connectivity signatures of translation directionality. Brain and Cognition 143 ► pp. 105584 ff.
Zheng, Yuxuan, Ian Kirk, Tengfei Chen, Minako O’Hagan & Karen E. Waldie
2022. Task-Modulated Oscillation Differences in Auditory and Spoken Chinese-English Bilingual Processing: An Electroencephalography Study. Frontiers in Psychology 13
Zhu, Lin
2023. A dynamic view of the neurocognition of translation: Illustrated by neurocognitive studies of the translation process. Ampersand 11 ► pp. 100145 ff.
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