Disentangling cognitive and emotional load in interpreting: Multimodal evidence from physiological, acoustic, and self-report measures

Stress is widely regarded as one of the most critical predictors of an interpreter’s well-being and performance. Data from surveys and field interviews (Daly and Chovaz 2020; Simms et al. 2021; Walczyński 2021) have repeatedly shown that community interpreting, especially healthcare interpreting, involves the most challenging communication scenarios, testing interpreters’ resilience (Park et al. 2017). Consequently, community interpreters are particularly susceptible to vicarious traumatisation, which can lead to long-term psychological effects such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depressive symptoms, anxiety, and burnout (Kindermann et al. 2017); negative feelings such as being overwhelmed, experiencing guilt, and feeling lonely and uncomfortable (Hancox et al. 2023); and adverse occupational outcomes such as absenteeism and high staff turnover (Lai and Heydon 2015; Delizée et al. 2024). Against this backdrop, the present study sought to explore stress, its origins, and its manifestations in consecutive interpreting (CI). Participants consecutively interpreted four narratives about mental healthcare from their L1 to L2, varying in cognitive and emotional intensity. Their skin responses and speech outputs were recorded while they performed the task. They self-reported their affect after the tasks, and we analysed their performance in interpreting.