Simultaneous interpreting in high and low working memory span interpreters, and their ability to cope with the articulatory suppression effect.

IRENE INJOQUE-RICLE; BARREYRO, J.P.; FORMOSO, J.; ALVAREZ-DREXLER, A; VIRGINIA JAICHENCO

Congreso; 3° ANPOLL International Psycholinguistics Congress; 2015

Simultaneous interpreting is a complex bilingual activity that involves different cognitive and linguistic competences, such as attentional resources, language comprehension, and multiple phonological, phonetic, semantic and pragmatic subprocesses (Morelli, 2005). During simultaneous interpreting, the verbal information is presented under conditions that restrain the amount of information that can be processed (Chernov, 2004). According to Darò (1989), working memory is considered one of the key factors of this interpretation process (Darò, 1989). Working memory is a short term memory system responsible for the temporal storage and simultaneous processing of information (Baddeley & Logie, 1999). Baddeley and Hitch?s original working memory model (Baddeley, 1986, 2007, 2010; Baddeley & Hitch, 1974; Baddeley & Logie, 1999) includes the central executive, responsible for the control and regulation of cognitive processes and of the two slave subsystems: the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad, in charge of the temporary storage of verbal and visuo-spatial information, respectively. The aim of this work is to study the simultaneous interpreting performance in high and low working memory span interpreters, and their ability to cope with the articulatory suppression effect, that implies that the articulation of irrelevant information during a verbal task affects the normal functioning of the phonological loop, because it prevents the subvocal rehearsal of the verbal input (Baddeley, 2007, 2010; Baddeley & Logie, 1999). For that purpose, a Simultaneous Interpreting task, a Digit Span with Articulatory Suppression task, a Listening Span with Articulatory Suppression task, and a Listening Span task were administered to an original sample of 30 interpreters (26 females -86.67%- and 4 males, mean age = 39.17, SD = 7.81). This sample was divided into a high working memory span (9 ss.) and low working memory span (8 ss.) group, based on their performance on the Listening Span task. Several one-way ANOVA were conducted. Results showed that high working memory span interpreters had better performance on the Simultaneous Interpreting task than low working mwmory span interpreters [F (1, 15) = 6.24, MSE = 7.79, p = .025], and also at the the Digit Span with Articulatory Suppression task [F (1, 15) = 23.50, MSE = 18.27, p < .01], and at the Listening Span with Articulatory Suppression task [F (1, 15) = 21.90, MSE = 3.14, p < .01]. These findings that high working memory capacity interpreters have better performance on the Simultaneous Interpreting task is an indicator that working memory capacity is one of the abilities involved on the interpreting process. Also, the results found on the comparison of both groups on the Digit Span with Articulatory Suppression task and on the Listening Span with Articulatory Suppression task indicates that high working memory capacity can be related with the ability to cope with the articulatory suppression effect, which is highly involved on the simultaneous interpreting process.