ERP neural correlates of the interpreter advantage in coordination for interpreting students

Abstract

Abstract The task of interpreting requires managing multiple tasks simultaneously, but how this practice of multitasking may contribute to the nonverbal domain of executive functioning has been explored in only a few studies, and little is known about the Event-related Potentials (ERP) neural correlates of this potential advantage. To fill this gap, we conducted an ERP study asking consecutive interpreting students and bilingual controls to perform a psychological refractory period (PRP) dual-task, comprising an auditory (Task 1) and a visual (Task 2) discrimination task. They were performed separately or together, the performance differences between which, i.e., dual-task costs, served as indices of coordination. Smaller costs for interpreting students in either or both tasks are considered an interpreter advantage in coordination, and those confined to Task 2 further indicate an advantage in bottleneck switching. The latter was exactly observed in stimulus-locked lateralized readiness potential (LRP) onset latency, suggesting such an advantage was probably due to efficient switching from the response selection of one task to that of the other at the bottleneck stage of dual-task processing. Smaller dual-task costs of stimulus-locked LRP onset latency thus constitute the neural correlates of the interpreter advantage in coordination.