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Simultaneous interpreting
Cognitive potential and limitations

Barbara Moser-Mercer
Université de Genève, École de traduction et d’interprétation

Over the past five years our research has focused on cognitive issues in si-
multaneous interpreting: the role of working memory, robustness of cogni-
tive processes, simultaneity of language processes, and the emerging role of
long-term working memory (LT-WM) in the development of expertise in
interpreting. With new technologies playing an increasingly important role
in the interpreter’s work environment and with speaking speeds far exceed-
ing the recommended 120 words per minute we need to ask ourselves just
how adaptable an interpreter’s cognitive functions are to what is widely
perceived as “cognitive overload”.
This contribution will discuss several studies on various aspects of cogni-
tive functioning in simultaneous interpreters and try to shed some light on
the “plasticity” of the interpreter’s “brain” and on how a professional inter-
preter who has achieved a high level of expertise can actually circumvent a
number of common cognitive constraints. This contribution argues, howev-
er, that even at the highest level of skill constraints do operate and interfere
with high-quality performance.

Introduction

The complexity of simultaneous interpreting (SI) was first recognized when the
International Labor Organization in the 1930s and the Nuremberg War Crimes
Tribunal in the 1940s introduced this new mode of interpretation to replace
consecutive interpreting, which had hitherto been used in international
organizations. Many of the most prominent consecutive interpreters of the time
refused to adapt to this new mode claiming it was much less precise (Ilg &
Lambert, 1996). Precision remained a convincing argument at the United
Nations Security Council, which replaced consecutive with simultaneous
Interpreting 5:2 (2000/01), 83–94.
issn 1384–6647 / e-issn 1569–982X
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
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84 Barbara Moser-Mercer

interpreting only in the 1970s. We will never quite know for sure whether it was
the loss of immediate contact with their audience, being moved from center
stage with the world’s leading politicians to a behind-the-scenes anonymity, or
the daunting speed of simultaneous, or simply fear of change, which prompted
many of the most accomplished interpreters to refuse to switch over to the new
mode. But it is safe to assume, and historical accounts by interpreters who
worked at the Nuremberg trials confirm this, that the simultaneity and com-
plexity of the task as well as speed stress screened out most applicants for the job
of simultaneous interpreting at the Nuremberg Trials (Gaiba, 1999). To this
day, well-designed aptitude tests focus on precisely these parameters in order to
screen potential candidates for interpreter training.

Cognitive parameters — processing speed, simultaneity of tasks

The first empirical studies in simultaneous interpreting focused on simultaneity

of tasks and processing speed and their effect on the quality of the interpreter’s
performance. Goldman-Eisler (1967) observed a pattern of temporal rhythm in
the interpreter’s utterance, though showing no relation to the rate of input of
the source language text (number of words per minute), which related to how
the interpreter redistributed the pause and speech durations associated with the
speaker. Source language input rate was discussed by Gerver (1969) and
Chernov (1969), who found that the interpreter’s performance was very
sensitive to faster input rates. The amount correctly interpreted decreased with
every increase in input rate, although the interpreters’ output in Gerver’s study
remained steady. Chernov (1969) suggested that for the interpreter to cope with
faster input rates he or she must make use of certain strategies, such as lexical
and syntactic compression, omission of information, incorrect processing and
failure to correct, among others. The latter was also supported by Gerver’s
(1974) research. Barik (1972, 1973) confirmed that the degree to which material
is omitted in interpretation varies directly with rates of input speech.
Just and Carpenter (1992) and Salthouse (1992) argued that differences in
rates of processing and working memory capacity are likely the result of
individuals’ differences in one or the other cognitive ability, such as reasoning
or one of the linguistic sub-skills. Most theoretical models of the interpreting
process (Gerver, 1976; Moser, 1978; Setton, 1999) feature component processes
and break down the interpreting activity into macro and/or micro sub-skills.
Despite the fact that only some features of these models have been tested
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SI: Cognitive potential and limitations 85

empirically, they can provide essential guidance to the interpreter trainer trying
to offer useful feedback to a heterogeneous student group. Teaching students
the skill of simultaneous interpreting requires a collaborative approach with
student and teacher attempting to isolate a student’s cognitive strengths and
weaknesses and, subsequently, developing interpreting strategies that will
maximize the former and compensate for the latter (Moser-Mercer, 2000a).

Neuropsychological parameters — hemispheric specialization

Fabbro and Gran (1994) initiated a line of research focusing on hemispheric

specialization in professional bilinguals and multilinguals. They suggested that
simultaneous interpretation requires the involvement of both cerebral hemi-
spheres and refer to the studies by Green et al. (1990) who used professional
interpreters and bilingual subjects in a verbal-manual interference paradigm.
Green et al. revealed greater right-hand (left-hemisphere) disruption during
shadowing, whereas during simultaneous interpretation no significant differ-
ences between hands (hemispheres) was found. Fabbro and Gran concluded
that simultaneous interpretation is a particularly complex cognitive task which
requires massive and concurrent activation of both cerebral hemispheres and
which engages more cerebral structures than mere listening and speaking
(shadowing).
This line of research was later on pursued by Kurz (1996), who launched a
pilot experiment on “mental simultaneous interpreting”. She found increased
brain activity, as measured by EEG, in the left frontal-temporal zone of the
brain during simultaneous interpreting into the mother tongue (A-language),
with simultaneous interpreting into the foreign language (B-language) making
strong demands on the corresponding right area of the brain, while no signifi-
cant differences were found in the left frontal-temporal zone between interpre-
tation from B to A and from A to B. Thus, according to the findings of Kurz
(1996) the right hemisphere is more involved when interpreting is carried out
into the foreign language. It should be borne in mind, however, that Kurz
employed “mental interpreting” (without the interpreter vocalizing his output)
in order to avoid artifacts in the recording of the data.
Tommola (Tommola, 2000; Tommola, Laine, Sunnari & Rinne, in this
issue) used positron emission tomography (PET) to study hemispheric lateral-
ization during simultaneous interpreting. He compared five different condi-
tions: a) rest, b) simultaneous interpreting from B to A, c) simultaneous
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86 Barbara Moser-Mercer

interpreting from A to B, d) shadowing of a text in A, and e) shadowing of a

text presented in B. Contrasting shadowing of a text in B with SI from B to A,
an increase in left frontal activation was observed, although the activation was
relatively small. According to the author, this difference is most likely related to
enhanced verbal encoding, effortful retrieval, and control of speech output. A
comparison of shadowing in A with SI from A to B produced much more
extensive activation increases in the left frontal regions. He concluded that
cerebral activation patterns thus vary according to the direction of interpreting
and become more extensive when working from A to B. However, in contrast
to Kurz (1996) no increase in involvement of the right hemisphere during
interpreting from A to B was observed.
While PET is insensitive to minor head movement (the disadvantage being
the use of a radioactive tracer), other brain imaging techniques, such as EEG, as
used in Kurz (1996), fMRI (functional MRI) or MEG (magnetoencephalogy),
are not immune to articulatory artifacts. Results from studies employing these
techniques must be viewed with caution.
An additional difficulty in evaluating the difference between the results
reported in Kurz (1996) and those in Tommola et al. (in this issue) is the fact
that the level of expertise of the interpreters used in Tommola’s study was so
high that the actual shadowing differences between the various conditions were
not seen (floor effect). Also, cognitively speaking, shadowing might be too close
to simultaneous interpreting to allow true differentiation, as it appears to
engage many of the same comprehension and production sub-processes as
simultaneous interpreting. Then again we have argued (Moser-Mercer et al.,
2000) that interpreters’ acquired — and wholly or partially automated —
processing strategies for interpreting make it difficult for them to adjust to the
different requirements of the shadowing task. The interpreter is thus forced to
suppress automated processing strategies and to adapt to changed processing
requirements (p. 127).
Ultimately we might have to concur with Paradis (2000: 20) with respect to
right hemisphere involvement in processing language in bilinguals as compared
with monolinguals: “As far as the experimental evidence is concerned […] a
recent meta-analysis has failed to come up with a difference and most research-
ers have finally abandoned this fruitless search for a differential cerebral
asymmetry”. In the context of the present discussion, however, the issue is not
so much one of right or left hemisphere involvement, but more one of potential
constraints. Research to date has not adequately addressed this question, neither
theoretically nor empirically.
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SI: Cognitive potential and limitations 87

Working memory and long-term working memory: The effects of expertise

The refinement of the working memory paradigm (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974;
Norman & Shallice, 1980; Baddeley, 1986; Gathercole & Baddeley, 1993) led
Darò and Fabbro (1994) to speculate on the role of the phonological loop and
the effect of articulatory suppression on the processing of language in SI. They
suggested that the process of SI results in inferior retention in long-term
memory due to the effect of articulatory suppression on working memory,
which is caused by concurrent listening and speaking. The fact that sub-vocal
rehearsal appears to play an essential role in language processing makes the
ability of the interpreter who comprehends a message in one language and
simultaneously reproduces this message in another appear like an extraordinary
cognitive feat. One might even say it presents a challenge to the working
memory theory as developed by Baddeley, although one could consider most
language processing to be somewhat analogous to SI, with the listener compre-
hending discourse while simultaneously preparing a response, albeit in one and
the same language and without having to reproduce faithfully and completely
the meaning of the original discourse.
The fact that simultaneous interpreters seem capable of processing language
reliably at high speed and of activating comprehension processes in one
language while suppressing corresponding production processes in that
language and activating production mechanisms in another represents a
challenge to theoretical models of language comprehension and production.
This certainly has led to speculation about a special innate skill interpreters
seem to possess that helps them accomplish their task, or that interpreters have
managed to automate to a rather high degree many of the sub-processes
involved in language comprehension and production.
Shlesinger (2000) worked within the working memory paradigm to discover
regular patterns in the processing of predetermined linguistic structures. She
investigated factors that influence interpreters’ use of attentional resources of
WM and analyzed the use of compensatory strategies in cases of cognitive
overload. According to Shlesinger’s findings, interpreting performance is better
at a slightly faster input rate, despite the need for more rapid retrieval of target
language equivalents from LTM; the word-length effect (Baddeley et al., 1975)
persists in spite of the absence of subvocal rehearsal; string-final items tend to
be produced string-initially; the use of semantically reduced, underspecified
target language replacements increases with presentation rate, and there is an
apparent trade-off between the number of items retained and error rate.
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88 Barbara Moser-Mercer

Shlesinger concludes that a very complex relationship holds between task-

related variables and time-based constraints and that the results obtained may
contribute to a better understanding of intra- and interlingual on-line processing.
Ivanova (1999) set out to demonstrate that expert processing in SI does
differ from that of individuals with limited exposure to the task, i.e. novices. She
found that interpreting experts performed significantly more accurately than
novices and suggests that qualitative differences exist in the processes that
mediate expert interpreting, which does not appear to be constrained by the
same cognitive limitations as those that apply to novice processing. Working
within the Ericsson & Kintsch (1995) LTM-WM paradigm, Ivanova concludes
that experts cope with interruptions and manage to switch more easily between
sub-tasks by selectively encoding the stimulus in a way that anticipates future
retrieval. These selective encoding skills seem to integrate knowledge, mediating
skills and procedures for the interpreting task in a way that makes it impossible
to separate them once they are expertly mastered. Some of experts’ processing
is also highly dependent on information density, with experts relying on
semantic cues to guide them to task-relevant information in the text to be
interpreted. She was also able to show that novice interpreters interpret at the
micro-level (very similar to novice translators, see Künzli, 1995), and that
experts approach the task at the macro level as well, seemingly shifting back and
forth between micro- and macro-levels (Anderson, 1995).
In the course of a four-year interdisciplinary study on the acquisition of
expertise in interpreting (Moser-Mercer, Frauenfelder, Casado & Künzli, 2000;
Moser-Mercer, 2000b) we compared professional interpreters and novice
interpreters on a number of interpreting sub-skills (Moser-Mercer, Lambert &
Williams, 1997): the ability to comprehend and speak simultaneously (Milzow
& Wiesenhütter, 1995), the robustness of language production processes (Grassi
& Mazzoleni, 1996), verbal fluency (Casado & Jimenez, 1996), and short-term
working memory (Nordet & Voegtlin, 1998). Professional interpreters and
novices fared equally well on most of the sub-skills. However, expert inter-
preters’ language production processes as tested in a delayed auditory feedback
experiment were significantly more robust, i.e. less prone to suffer from
interference, than those of novices (Moser-Mercer et al., 2000), begging the
question of whether as a result of many years of professional practice a certain
restructuring of processes had taken place in short-term working memory (e.g.
constraints imposed by minimal reaction times for immediate reactions can be
relieved by anticipation based on predictive advance cues, Ericsson, 1996). In fact,
studies by Ericsson and Kintsch (1995) reveal that expert performance relies upon
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SI: Cognitive potential and limitations 89

the availability of long-term working memory processes developed over years of

deliberate practice (e.g. rapid and reliable retrieval of information from LTM
with cued recall relying on specific retrieval structures developed in LTM).
Expert interpreters also showed superior verbal fluency as compared to
novices as soon as stimulus items were taken from domains they encounter
frequently in everyday life (human rights, international relations, etc.). Casado
& Jiménez (1996: 98) report that expert interpreters’ mean scores for a battery
of verbal fluency tests were comparable to those of novice interpreting students
for all sub-tests (spelling task, articulatory fluency level task, morphology task,
phonology task) except for the semantic task, which consisted of a semantic
category and a free association task, and included stimulus items such as
“communication” and “strike” (subjects for this study were drawn from the
pool of expert conference interpreters domiciled in Geneva; a majority of
Geneva-based conference interpreters work for the United Nations family of
organizations which includes the International Labor Organization), where the
reported means were higher, though without reaching significance. These
results would lend some support to Ericsson’s (1998) claims that high-level
skills of experts are not immediately transferable to other domains and that
experts forced to perform in an unfamiliar environment are like fish out of
water: they will revert to being novices.
If indeed we are leaning towards a developmental model of the expert
interpreter, we would have to assume that every human being potentially has
the capacity to become a simultaneous interpreter and abandon the hypothesis
of there being some innate additional ability that is responsible for expert
performance of this skill.
I would support such a theoretical claim and argue that expert interpreters
must rely on a range of cognitive sub-skills, not all of which are successfully
mastered, or mastered at the same level, by each and every individual. Without
listing all the obvious skills, such as high proficiency in the interpreter’s
working languages, there are some that do seem to set the accomplished expert
apart from his struggling counterpart. A long-term study on the acquisition of
simultaneous interpreting skills by students enrolled in an intensive post-
graduate program (Moser-Mercer, 2000a; Moser-Mercer, 2000b; Moser-
Mercer, in preparation) revealed clearly which of the cognitive/linguistic sub-
skills posed significant and consistent problems for the novice on the way to
acquiring expertise: concentration, or the ability to sustain attention for any
length of time and to filter out noise, such as interference from the other
language (poor suppression), finding equivalent expressions in the target
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90 Barbara Moser-Mercer

language (having the contents of one’s declarative memory structured in a way

that supports fast retrieval), processing speed, and prosody. The author’s
research revealed that novice interpreters in an intensive post-graduate course
are constantly pushed to ever higher levels of performance and that those who
succeed appear to be able to hone all sub-skills equally well, to integrate them
successfully, and to carry out cognitive processes at high speed (Moser-Mercer,
2000b; Moser-Mercer, in preparation). This research reveals also that simulta-
neous interpreting is a delicate cognitive balancing act: no two students exhibit
exactly the same configuration of cognitive strengths and weaknesses. For some,
automating parts of the production process (by building up a repertoire of
familiar expressions, for example) can relieve the pressure on the production
process overall; others feel the need to enhance their chunking abilities in
working memory in order to meet the need for speed by working on larger,
immediately recognizable input chunks; others, again, find that some form of
behavioral conditioning, such as practicing comprehension in high-noise
environments, helps them develop the high level of concentration needed to
sustain expert performance (Moser-Mercer, in preparation).

Stress and fatigue

Successful interpreters are those who manage to maintain the delicate balance
between their cognitive strengths and weaknesses and who have developed
coping skills (weeding out redundant information, focusing on main ideas, for
example) that would guarantee high-level performance in the face of impossible
external conditions, such as extreme speed and/or external noise. Nevertheless,
even the most successful professionals cannot sustain this level of performance
if extreme conditions prevail for too long. This has been clearly shown in our
pilot study on stress and fatigue in interpreting (Moser-Mercer, Künzli &
Korac, 1998) where quality of performance, as measured by the number of
meaning errors committed, decreased significantly with increasing stress and
resulting fatigue of the interpreter. Recent investigations into the effect of new
technologies (interpreting remotely via ISDN lines) on the interpreter’s
performance (IAMLAPD, 2001; Moser-Mercer, Künzli, Korac & Servant, 1999a,
b) also point to the vulnerability of even the most expert interpreters to
cognitive overload, such as working in a dark room for extended periods of
time (which has a detrimental effect on vigilance); not being able to integrate
image and sound for high-speed comprehension as the images are selected by
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SI: Cognitive potential and limitations 91

a cameraman and/or image and sound are not always properly synchronized
(Moser-Mercer, 2003); or having to cope with technical failures and noise
without the interpreter, working miles away from the actual meeting room,
being able to exert some control over the situation.

Conclusion

The picture emerges of a complex cognitive skill that the human brain can
adapt to, given the right conditions and conditioning. This conditioning would
obviously not only start at the post-graduate level, but commence in infancy.
Some of the findings discussed in this paper should be considered in aptitude
tests for admission to interpreter training programs, such as those on processing
speed (Gerver, 1969; Chernov 1969; Gerver, 1974; Barik, 1972, 1973; Shlesinger,
2000), and the insights gained from considering interpreting expertise as the
end-result of a long, evolutionary process, where what happens on the road to
expertise (selective encoding skills as reported in Ivanova, 1999; consistent
problems in the acquisition of interpreting skills as reported in Moser-Mercer,
2000a, b; in preparation) is as important as the end-result. Interpreters them-
selves provide ample clues as to where their cognitive limitations lie (recent
resolutions regarding working conditions in remote interpreting, see
http://www.aiic.net/ViewPage.cfm/article728.htm) and the investigation into
interpreters’ working conditions, fatigue and stress, needs to continue with
carefully designed studies whose results provide valid indicators for adapting
the interpreter’s working environment to the changing needs of the conference
industry. However, while switching from consecutive to simultaneous inter-
preting may well have represented a quantum leap in the interpreter’s level of
cognitive performance, it is rather unlikely that the human brain, even at its
most efficient, is capable of more than just minor adjustments to current levels
of interpreting skill.

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About the author

Barbara Moser-Mercer is Professor of conference interpreting at the École de traduction et
d’interprétation (ETI), University of Geneva, and Director of the Conference interpreting
program. She studied at the University of Innsbruck and the University of Rochester, NY and
her Ph.D. from the University of Innsbruck examined the possibilities of modeling the
process of simultaneous interpreting. She has published papers on aptitude testing for
conference interpreters, and on various aspects of interpreters’ working conditions. She is
active in the training of interpreter trainers both at ETI as well as for the EU and for AIIC, an
active conference interpreter and member of AIIC.
Barbara.Moser@eti.unige.ch