Abstract
There is currently a lively debate in the literature whether bilingualism leads to enhanced cognitive control or not. Recent evidence suggests that knowledge of more than one language does not always suffice for the manifestation of a bilingual cognitive control advantage. As a result, ongoing research has focused on modalities of bilingual language use that may interact with the bilingual advantage. In this study, we explored the cognitive control performance of simultaneous interpreters. These highly proficient bilinguals comprehend information in one language while producing in the other language, which is a complex skill requiring high levels of language control. In a first experiment, we compared professional interpreters to monolinguals. Data were collected on interference suppression (flanker task), prepotent response inhibition (Simon task), and short-term memory (digit span task). The results showed that the professional interpreters performed similarly to the monolinguals on all measures. In Experiment 2, we compared professional interpreters to monolinguals and second language teachers. Data were collected on interference suppression (advanced flanker task), prepotent response inhibition (advanced flanker task), attention (advanced flanker task), short-term memory (Hebb repetition paradigm), and updating (n-back task). We found converging evidence for our finding that experience in interpreting may not lead to superior interference suppression, prepotent response inhibition, and short-term memory. In fact, our results showed that the professional interpreters performed similarly to both the monolinguals and the second language teachers on all tested cognitive control measures. We did, however, find anecdotal evidence for a (small) advantage in short-term memory for interpreters relative to monolinguals when analyzing composite scores of both experiments together. Taken together, the results of the current study suggest that interpreter experience does not necessarily lead to general cognitive control advantages. However, there may be small interpreter advantages in short-term memory, suggesting that this might be an important cognitive control aspect of simultaneous interpreting. The results are discussed in the light of ongoing debates about bilingual cognitive control advantages.
Highlights
Recent research has shown that certain cognitively demanding activities, such as playing video games, playing music, and mastering chess, may be beneficial to human cognition, beyond the domain of practice (e.g., Reingold et al, 2001; Bialystok, 2006; Schroeder et al, 2016)
To summarize, using three tasks we examined the possibilities of bilingual advantages in interpreters at the level of interference suppression, prepotent response inhibition, attention, STM, and updating
The main purpose of this study was to investigate whether the high levels of language control of interpreters amplify possible cognitive control advantages often associated with bilingualism
Summary
Recent research has shown that certain cognitively demanding activities, such as playing video games, playing music, and mastering chess, may be beneficial to human cognition, beyond the domain of practice (e.g., Reingold et al, 2001; Bialystok, 2006; Schroeder et al, 2016). Bilinguals outperform monolinguals on non-verbal tasks that require different cognitive control processes, like conflict resolution, attention, shifting, updating, and working memory, for example (e.g., Bialystok et al, 2006, 2008; Costa et al, 2008; Prior and Macwhinney, 2010; Luo et al, 2013). One explanation for these bilingual advantages is that using multiple languages requires a mechanism to select (words in) the target language while avoiding interference from the other known language. Using multiple languages in daily life might train domain-general cognitive control, in a way similar to mastering chess (Bialystok et al, 2012)
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