Effect of Working Memory Training on Simultaneous Interpreting Performance: Dual N-Back Task

Abstract

ABSTRACTSAKALLI Buse, Effect of Working Memory Training on Simultaneous Interpreting Performance: Dual N-Back Task, Master Thesis, Ankara 2015Simultaneous interpretation requires the act of switching continuously from one language to another while decoding and simultaneously encoding the entering message to generate an equivalent discourse in the target language. The process of interpreting in simultaneous mode is realized with many higher-order cognitive skills such as multi-tasking, updating, switching and concurrent information processing skills as well as advanced bilingual language skills. All of these skills underline the need to constantly update the incoming information and thus overload the working memory capacity as working memory is well known to be engaged in updating information during the ongoing information processing. In this study, the effect of working memory training through dual n-back task on simultaneous interpreting performance was investigated through a sing