Eye-tracking visual attention of professional interpreters during technology-assisted simultaneous interpreting

Abstract

This study investigated the ways in which professional interpreters’ visual attention is captured by real-time source text captions generated by automatic speech recognition (ASR) and real-time target text subtitles generated by automatic speech translation (AST) – both of which are presented in parallel during simultaneous interpreting (SI). Using eye-tracking data, we examined whether attention to ASR and AST varies according to the interpreting direction (L1–L2 vs L2–L1) and how it relates to interpreting accuracy. The findings indicate that the ASR captions captured more attention than the AST subtitles, especially in the L1–L2 direction. In the L2–L1 direction, greater attention to AST subtitles in the interpreters’ L1 (Chinese) was linked to a greater level of accuracy. These findings were explained by the interaction of bottom-up and top-down factors. Insights into these attention patterns could possibly inform the design of tailored training sessions to equip interpreters better for SI in technology-assisted environments.