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The central processing bottleneck during word production: Comparing simultaneous interpreters, bilinguals and monolinguals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2018

LONGJIAO SUI ,
HAIDEE KRUGER  and
HELEN SLATYER
LONGJIAO SUI*
Affiliation:
Macquarie University
HAIDEE KRUGER
Affiliation:
Macquarie University / North-West University
HELEN SLATYER
Affiliation:
Macquarie University
*
Address for correspondence: Longjiao Sui, Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Macquarie Drive, North Ryde, NSW, 2109, Australiacaroline.sui1989@gmail.com.
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Abstract

Are simultaneous interpreters subject to the central processing bottleneck, which can postpone the reaction time and impair the performance of another concurrent task, during word production? Moreover, is there any difference between interpreters, bilinguals and monolinguals in the word production bottleneck? In this study, professional simultaneous interpreters, proficient bilinguals and monolinguals performed a dual task consisting of a picture naming task in sentence context (Task 1) and a pitch tone discrimination task (Task 2). The results show that interpreters are also subject to the central processing bottleneck during word production, and there is no significant difference between the three groups in the duration of the word production bottleneck. Unexpected differences in performance were found between English–Asian language and English–European language pairs within the interpreter group, but not within the bilingual group, showing that European-language interpreters were as fast as monolinguals in lexical access, and faster than Asian-language interpreters and bilinguals.

Keywords

simultaneous interpretinglexical accessbottleneckpsychological refractory period (PRP)
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 22 , Issue 5 , November 2019 , pp. 968 - 985
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

The work reported in this paper was submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree MPhil (Linguistics) at Macquarie University, Australia. The authors are grateful to Zenzi M. Griffin and Victor S. Ferreira for offering valuable testing materials. They would like to acknowledge the contributions of Jan-Louis Kruger in recruiting participants for this study, and three anonymous reviewers in providing feedback on aspects of the study.

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