Contributions Of Interpreting Experience To Mental Set Shifting Among Young Adult Interpretation-learners

In recent years,bilingual phenomenon has been the research spot in the language cognitive research field.Interpretation training is a specific way of bilingual training,the interpreter needs to switch between two languages at any moment,whether the advantages of language training will be switched into non-verbal tasks is the focus of this study.This study set bilingual mental set shifting ability as the starting point,selecting young interpretation-learners as the participants,through cognitive psychological experiments and comparative studies on how individual mental set shifting ability develops with the interpretation ability.By implementing designed psychological experiment,mental set shifting abilities in different interpreting levels were revealed.Observing the development of cognitive controlling differences tackled the question of Does interpretation learners with different levels of interpretation experience have different mental set shifting performances,which provides empirical references for interpretation teaching and second language acquisition.The paper revolves mainly about three research questions 1).Are there differences(in mental set shifting ability)in bilingual interpreters compared with noninterpreters? 2).Does the mental set shifting ability enhances along with interpreting experience? 3).Does language proficiency development affects mental set shifting ability? In some university,72 English post-graduate majors were chosen as participants,and 32 non English majors were selected as controls.Using the data collection methods such as questionnaire which strictly matched many factors like age,education level,combined with the verbal fluency test,backgrounds and L2 learners' language levels were accurately divided.Finally,based on E-Prime software programmed WSCT(Winsconsin card sorting test)to test participants' mental set shifting ability.Reaction time and accuracy were tested as indicators to comparatively examine the learners' cognitive ability in the process of WCST experiment.All data analyses were performed by SPSS software.Results showed that the two interpretation groups in WCST performed better than the control group in accuracy.No significant difference in reaction time among three groups was found.The language proficiency was positively correlated to the accuracy,and reaction time was negatively correlated to the language proficiency.Above results suggest that 1)language interpreting experience does contribute to cognitive control advantages,2)Language proficiency is positively correlated to cognitive control differences in mental set shifting.The study has an enlightenment on feasible interpretation teaching techniques,further researches need to prove the role of non-verbal switching training in improving interpretation ability.