Xing Shunjie, Yang Jing
Bilingual Cognition and Development Lab, Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou 510420, China.
School of International Studies, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.
Brain Sci. 2023 Sep 11;13(9):1306. doi: 10.3390/brainsci13091306.
Interpreting, a complicated and demanding bilingual task, depends heavily on attentional control. However, few studies have focused on the interpreters' advantages in attention, and the findings so far have been inconsistent. Meanwhile, the connection between attentional networks and other cognitive abilities, such as working memory (WM), has rarely been explored in interpreters. The present study investigated whether interpreting experience (IE) contributed to the attentional networks of bilinguals and explored the link between interpreters' attention and WM. Three groups of Chinese-English bilinguals, differing only in their duration of interpreting training (the More-IE group, the Less-IE group, and the No-IE group), completed the Attention Network Test (ANT). Results showed that only the alerting network was more efficient in the More-IE group than in the Less-IE and No-IE groups; moreover, the dynamics between the alerting and executive networks were significant only in the More-IE group. Furthermore, we found a negative correlation between the executive effect and the working memory capacity (WMC) in the More-IE group. Our study validated and provided empirical support for the Attentional Control Model, stimulating further research into neurocognitive mechanisms of advanced second language learning.
口译是一项复杂且要求颇高的双语任务，在很大程度上依赖于注意力控制。然而，很少有研究关注口译员在注意力方面的优势，而且目前的研究结果并不一致。与此同时，在口译员中，注意力网络与其他认知能力（如工作记忆）之间的联系鲜有探索。本研究调查了口译经验是否对口译员的注意力网络有影响，并探讨了口译员的注意力与工作记忆之间的联系。三组汉英双语者，仅在口译训练时长上有所不同（更多口译经验组、较少口译经验组和无口译经验组），完成了注意力网络测试（ANT）。结果显示，只有警觉网络在更多口译经验组中比在较少口译经验组和无口译经验组中更高效；此外，警觉网络和执行网络之间的动态关系仅在更多口译经验组中显著。此外，我们发现更多口译经验组中的执行效应与工作记忆容量（WMC）之间存在负相关。我们的研究验证了注意力控制模型并为其提供了实证支持，激发了对高级第二语言学习神经认知机制的进一步研究。
