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You know those people who effortlessly drop those dictionary Word s of t he Da y in casual conversation, sounding ever-so-charming and smart? Yeah, we're not one of them. But we'd sure like to be. And luckily, there's an app for that.

Vocabulary building apps are designed to help you learn new words while having fun on your phone. From Scrabble-style games with friends to flash card quizzes, learn more about nine apps that'll increase your verbiage in no time below.

Thi s app uses examples from movies, songs, famous quotes, and more to help you learn new words. It utilizes repetition to aid you in remembering.

2. Magoosh Vocabulary Builder

Designed with sophisticated algorithms that customize exercises based on your responses, Vocabulary.com is an app that helps you learn new words via short quizzes and games. Download the app for free and answer a series of short vocab questions to reveal a whole new world of words.

If you haven't already been hooked on the game Words with Friends, then chances are you've at least heard of it. The insanely popular game from Zynga-the people that created Farmville -has been around for nearly a decade and still perseveres for a reason. Kind of like Scrabble for your smartphone, Words with Friends forces you to learn new (and often uncommon) words while allowing you to play (and keep in touch) with friends.

Sort of like a flash card quiz for your android, the Pow erVocab app for Android builds your vocabulary with timed mini-tests where players match words with multiple-choice definitions. Even cooler, you can play against other people when you feel like showing off your new vocab skills.

If you're searching for a more old-school style vocab builder then Anki is the app for you. Equipped with shared flashcard decks and mega-downloads such as "4,000 Essential English Words," Anki uses images and sounds to offer a multimedia vocabulary-boosting experience that still relies on flashcard-style techniques.

Short and sweet, 7 Little W ords is a clever vocabulary game that gives you seven different definitions and lettered tiles to arrange into words. The idea is that you'll learn new words as you narrow down your choices from the ones you already know, while still having fun playing on your phone.

Thesaurus lovers, rejoice: There's an app that actually lets you search for words by description. Revers e Dictionary has a reverse lookup engine that generates dozens of potential words based on your description phrase, so you can always find the perfect word (and learn a whole lot of new ones).

Okay so technically this isn't going to better your native vocabulary, but Duolingo will help you learn a whole new language in just a few minutes a day. Duolingo lets you learn a new language for free, in less than 10 minutes per session, through reading, writing, and pronunciation exercises.

Additional reporting by Carolin Lehmann

Caroline Biggs

Contributor

Caroline is a writer living in New York City. When she's not covering art, interiors, and celebrity lifestyles, she's usually buying sneakers, eating cupcakes, or hanging with her rescue bunnies, Daisy and Daffodil.

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9 Apps That'll Increase Your Vocabulary (and Make You Sound Smarter)

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You know those people who effortlessly drop those dictionary Word s of t he Da y in casual conversation, sounding ever-so-charming and smart? Yeah, we're not one of them. But we'd sure like to be. And luckily, there's an app for that.

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Find interpreting Mentors and Educational Interpreting specific-courses and workshops

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Find interpreting Mentors and Educational Interpreting specific-courses and workshops

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The Educational Interpreting Track is designed to bridge the gap between graduation or state required assessment and working as a qualified interpreter. An 8-week cycle includes: Weekly class on Zoom, asynchronous assignments on GoReact, and opportunities for real-time practice. Mentors with diverse education and professional backgrounds provide individualized feedback to help you achieve your goals

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We are a non-profit organization providing interpreters workshops and mentorship as they gain professional skills and knowledge for the variety of interpreting situations they will encounter in the real world. We are also home to the GAP Mentorship Institute, a premiere mentorship program proven to

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North Carolina Interpreters and Transliterators Licensing Board

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North Carolina Interpreters and Transliterators Licensing Board

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| North Carolina Interpreters and Transliterators Licensing Board

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Please note that the NCITLB is for interpreters and transliterators who work specifically with deaf and hard of hearing people and those who interact with them. It is not meant for individuals who interpret between two spoken languages.

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Join for $30 and take their exclusive workshops ALL YEAR LONG for no additional cost - This is the best deal out there!

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National Association of Interpreters in Education

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Does NAIE offer organizational memberships? No. At this time we only offer individual memberships.

I don't have a PayPal account, can I still pay for my membership with a credit card? PayPal allows you to checkout as a guest without the need for a PayPal account. You can also mail in your membership form with a check (see "Mail In Form with Check" below).

When does my membership expire? Your membership expires one year from your initial join date.

My membership lapsed, is there a penalty fee for reinstating? No. NAIE membership is completely voluntary. If your membership lapses, you will not have access to member only benefits. To reinstate, login to your account and renew your membership.

How do I renew my membership? Go to https://naiedu.org/account/ and click RENEW NOW. This will take you to another page where you will see your past transactions. On the most recent transaction, click Subscribe on the far right side. This will take you to another page where you can enter/update your information, then scroll to the bottom and you'll see the option to pay.

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Join NAIE - National Association of Interpreters in Education

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Click Here to Join NAIE Online Today! contact treasurer@naiedu.org for a mail in member application NAIE is a space for all interpreters and stakeholders who support deaf, hard of hearing, and deafblind students to address the challenges of the educational system.

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Join for $30 and take their exclusive workshops ALL YEAR LONG for no additional cost - This is the best deal out there!

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National Association of Interpreters in Education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Does NAIE offer organizational memberships? No. At this time we only offer individual memberships.

I don't have a PayPal account, can I still pay for my membership with a credit card? PayPal allows you to checkout as a guest without the need for a PayPal account. You can also mail in your membership form with a check (see "Mail In Form with Check" below).

When does my membership expire? Your membership expires one year from your initial join date.

My membership lapsed, is there a penalty fee for reinstating? No. NAIE membership is completely voluntary. If your membership lapses, you will not have access to member only benefits. To reinstate, login to your account and renew your membership.

How do I renew my membership? Go to https://naiedu.org/account/ and click RENEW NOW. This will take you to another page where you will see your past transactions. On the most recent transaction, click Subscribe on the far right side. This will take you to another page where you can enter/update your information, then scroll to the bottom and you'll see the option to pay.

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Join NAIE - National Association of Interpreters in Education

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Click Here to Join NAIE Online Today! contact treasurer@naiedu.org for a mail in member application NAIE is a space for all interpreters and stakeholders who support deaf, hard of hearing, and deafblind students to address the challenges of the educational system.

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Self-Directed Course starting in February. Register now for: Interpreting in Video Remote Settings Interpreting for Job Interviews CEUs now available for a cost through MRID. Click on links above for more information. Learn more about Stepping Stones

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The Described and Captioned Media Program

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The Described and Captioned Media Program is a free-loan library of accessible educational media for use by teachers and family member of K-12 students with a vision or hearing loss. This U.S. Department of Education-funded program also serves as a clearinghouse of accessibility information and training resources as well as a gateway to accessibility information from partnering organizations.

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Improving services, results, and quality of life for children and youth who are deafblind

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If you are a family member, teacher, or other individual involved in the life of a child with both vision and hearing loss, please contact your state deafblind project for information and assistance.

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Our mission

We are a collaborative system that enables infants, children, and youth who are deafblind to participate meaningfully in their homes, schools, and communities. We provide free services in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont.

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New England Consortium on Deafblindness - Perkins School for the Blind

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Our mission We are a collaborative system that enables infants, children, and youth who are deafblind to participate meaningfully in their homes, schools,

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ASL Connect | Home | Gallaudet University

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Learn basic American Sign Language (ASL) online with video tutorials from ASL Connect from Gallaudet University.

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Join for one year and become eligible for testing stipend/continuing Ed stipend

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Train for a career in communicating with the deaf and hard of hearing.

Gardner-Webb provides you with the necessary training to become proficient in the language. As a student, you'll have opportunities to join the Deaf Club, students dedicated to promoting deaf awareness and assisting the deaf community and general population; Joyful Hands, a ministry team sign language choir that performs Christian songs in sign language; ASL-based international mission trips; and the ASL Table, a weekly silent dinner in the GWU cafeteria that allows you to join together with hearing and deaf students.

Curriculum

What You'll Learn

A major in American Sign Language will be prepare you for interpreting, teaching, and other careers where communication with the deaf and hard of hearing are necessary. Upon graduation, you will have earned an advanced or higher on the Sign Language Proficiency Interview (SLPI) because you will be proficient in receptive and expressive ASL and knowledgeable about Deaf culture and history.

Available Programs

Bachelor of Arts in American Sign Language (ASL)

In addition to the Gardner-Webb University general education program requirements, an additional minimum of 48 hours of credit is required for the Bachelor of Arts in American Sign Language degree. Required courses represent 39-45 hours while electives represent a minimum of 9 hours. The major includes the completion of a capstone project, as well as internships.

For a more in-depth look at program requirements, visit our Academic Catalog.

American Sign Language (ASL) Minor

A minor in American Sign Language can be earned upon completion of 15 hours of Sign Language electives beyond the core requirements. Deaf Culture ( SGLG 305) in combination with any other ASL courses at the 200-level or above is required.

Non-American Sign Language majors can also choose American Sign Language as a minor area of concentration.

For a more in-depth look at minor requirements, visit our Academic Catalog.

Interpreting Minor

A minor in Interpreting can be earned upon completion of 18 credit hours in courses including English Processing for Interpreters, Fundamentals and Theories of Interpreting, Signs in Application, and Interpreting.

The Interpreting minor is available only to ASL majors

For a more in-depth look at minor requirements, visit our Academic Catalog.

Outcomes

What You'll Do

Your degree in American Sign Language will prepare you to take on rewarding interpreting positions in various settings such as:

1. Healthcare centers

2. Legal environments

3. Education

4. Business

5. Mental health organizations

You will also be prepared for graduate studies in ASL and linguistics. With teacher licensure, you'll have the opportunity to make a difference in the schools throughout North Carolina by raising awareness for ASL and deaf culture and creating opportunities for expression and communication.

GWU's Interpreter Training Program consists of the ASL Major and the Interpreting Minor. This combination allows us to give greater weight to the development of language skills since Interpreting Skills are dependent on strong language skills. Our graduates have been very successful and our program is well respected for producing good interpreters ready to go to work. Our program integrates knowledge of interpreting with practice both in and out of class and real world experience. Our graduates qualify for Provisional Interpreting Licensure in NC and we work with them to prepare for the certification test with either EIPA or CASLI.

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Gardner-Webb University seeks excellence in all things, but especially in academic instruction.

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Complete interpreting degree all ONLINE with Carolina University!

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Complete interpreting degree all ONLINE with Carolina University!

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Overview

Agencies throughout the United States look to hire trained and credentialed interpreters who are certified members of the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID), a national membership organization that plays a leading role in advocating for excellence in the delivery of interpretation and transliteration services between people who use sign language and people who use spoken language. To be certified, an interpreter must have a baccalaureate degree and pass the National Interpreter Certification (NIC) exam. Holders of this certification demonstrate a broad knowledge of the field of interpreting, are ethical decision-makers, possess exceptional interpreting skills, and are highly employable. The RID also has numerous associate members who are not certified yet engaged in interpreting and transliterating; however, they do not hold a certification accepted by RID. Therefore, their opportunities to work are more infrequent and pay is much less than certified interpreters. Those interested in becoming nationally certified need technical training to prepare for the NIC but locating a training program can be challenging. Most programs are in-person and require four years of study with a curriculum beginning with learning basic ASL. Our certificate is delivered online and helps create a pathway for people to learn the technical aspects of interpreting while preparing for the NIC.

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Agencies throughout the United States look to hire trained and credentialed interpreters who are certified members of the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID), a national membership organization that plays a leading role in advocating for excellence in the delivery of interpretation and transliteration services between people who use sign language and people who use spoken language.

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EIPA offers two comprehensive tests to assess the skills and knowledge of educational interpreters. EIPA also has developed a screening tool for school systems to obtain general feedback about an interpreter's skill during the hiring process.

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CPCC and GU have an articulation agreement which means that your credit transfers to GU and you can complete your degree there! Check it out!

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The BA program focuses on face-to-face, interactive, community interpreting, and thus a dialogic approach to interpreting. Students apply for admission to the BA in Interpretation major as freshmen or after acceptance to Gallaudet University as a transfer student. The students may transfer their interpreting course(s) from another college if they have the grade of B or better, and approved by Gallaudet University Registrar Office. Refer to the department page for details on Requirements for Admission to a Major in Interpretation. If an applicant has at least 56 transfer credits from other college or university, GSR 110 will be waived.

All applicants must have a score of 3 or higher on the ASL Proficiency Interview (ASLPI) to be accepted into the program. They will then be eligible to enroll in INT 325 and higher levels of INT courses.

To continue in the program, students are required to maintain a B or higher in all INT courses required for the BA in Interpretation major.

Students are required to provide evidence of having registered to take the RID's National Interpreter Certification Knowledge written exam or RID's Certified Deaf Interpreter written exam by December 1st during their last academic year in the Interpretation program. For the BAI Program of Study, please refer to below and the BAI Program Outcomes.

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B.A. in Interpretation | Gallaudet University

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The BA program focuses on face-to-face, interactive, community interpreting, and thus a dialogic approach to interpreting. Students apply for admission to

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Interpreting, Deaf Education and Advocacy Services, B.S. Interpreter Preparation Concentration - UNC Greensboro

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The UNC Greensboro Interpreting, Deaf Education, Advocacy and Services (IDEAS) Interpreter Preparation program prepares professionals to work as sign language interpreters in community and educational settings.

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Mailing Address
2301 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699 - 2301
Regional Centers
Telephone
919-527-6930 (Voice)
1-800-851-6099 (Voice)
919-715-0933 (TTY)
919-890-0859 (Videophone)

Email
DSDHH.Information@dhhs.nc.gov

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NC DHHS: Division of Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

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The Division of Services for the Deaf and the Hard of Hearing provides you with the information, skills and tools you need to achieve effective communication and access to resources in your community for independence and full participation in society.

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Center for Assessment of Sign Language Interpreters

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Center for the Assessment of Sign Language Interpretation

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Before you take a CASLI Exam, you will want to review the entire testing process. As each exam can be different, we recommend specifically reviewing that exams "Exam Details" webpage. Once you have met exam eligibility, have purchased, and have scheduled the exam, your next step will be to prepare for your exam day.

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The Southeast's choice for Deaf education!

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Center for Atypical Language Interpreting

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Skip to content

Mailing List

Northeastern University's American Sign Language and Interpreting Education Program was awarded a U.S. Department of Education Rehabilitation Services Administration grant for $2.1 million to build on the successes of the Center for Atypical Language Interpreting (CALI). The project addresses the growing demand for interpreters with specialized skills to serve Deaf and DeafBlind persons with atypical language.

The five-year project officially launched on October 1, 2021. Plans include expanding the reach of the Program of Study - comprised of facilitated online modules, practical application virtual experience, and supervised induction - to interpreters in 20 not-yet-served areas of the country. Teams of subject matter experts created content on interpreting with elder Deaf people whose language may be atypical due to aging and neurodegeneration, and immigrants whose first language is neither ASL nor English. Further, in response to needs expressed by CALI trainees, facilitators, and induction supervisors, we have deepened the language assessment, teamwork, and mentoring elements of the program. Self-directed online modules, with above-described content enhancements, and other stand-alone resources will be available to all interested stakeholders. Stay tuned to this website for more information.

The contents of this website were developed under grants H160D210001 and H160D160002 (ALN 84.160D) from the Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. (Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1221e-3 and 3474.) The National Clearinghouse of Rehabilitation Training Materials (NCRTM) website is the central portal for accessing rehabilitation training resources. The site features robust search capabilities, a star quality rating system, enhanced usability and accessibility, and most importantly, new resources. Site content includes high quality training materials that cover a range of topics relevant to the rehabilitation and education communities. Additionally, while the clearinghouse focuses on current materials, an archive of NCRTM resources dating back to the 1960s will remain available.

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Northeastern University's American Sign Language and Interpreting Education Program was awarded a U.S. Department of Education Rehabilitation Services Administration grant for $2.1 million to build on the successes of the Center for Atypical Language Interpreting (CALI). The project addresses the growing demand for interpreters with specialized skills to serve Deaf and DeafBlind persons with atypical [...]

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Language Translation and Interpreting Services | LanguageLine Solutions

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LanguageLine is the global leader in interpretation, translation, and localization services. We provide 24/7 language access coverage in 290+ languages.

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American Sign language - English interpreting agency based in North Carolina. ACCESS covers the region of NC and SC in a variety of interpreting settings including medical, educational, and community.

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Ever since the 19th century, memory has been classified as long-term or short-term. This difference was explored in more depth in 1968, by the Atkinson-Shiffrin memory model, that suggests that human memory involves a three phase sequence:

the senses have limited ability to store information about the world without processing it for less than a second. For example, vision has iconic memory for visual stimuli like shapes, sizes, colours and location, but does not give these meaning.

our short-term memory is where most information processing takes place. It is where we try to give meaning to what we see and what we hear, converting this information into something significant, filling the blanks with elements from long-term memory. At this stage, information is held for 15 to 30 seconds, more than enough for it to be reused.

long-term memory allows for information to be held, not just for seconds, but for a lifetime. This memory seems to have unlimited capacity to store information.

Short-term memory and interpreting

The role of short-term memory while interpreting has been discussed by several researchers. We have, for instance, Daniel Gile, who considers interpreting performance as a set of three efforts, each of which with their own role in the limited supply of processing capacity:

1. Listening and Analysis Effort: concerning all comprehension activities, such as the analysis of the acoustic characteristics of sounds, the recognition of certain sequences of sounds and the interpretation of the meaning of words and sentences.

2. Production Effort: the production part of interpreting, involving all operation, from the mental representation of the message to its delivery.

3. Short-Term Memory Effort: concerning all operations that occur continuously while interpreting. Short-term memory operations are necessary due to the delay between the moment the speech is made and the moment it is analysed. Furthermore, short-term memory also has a role between the moment the sounds of the speech are analysed and converted into ideas and the time the speech is produced. This effort may be intensified due to situational problems or specific linguistic factors (for instance, the speaker's accent may be hard to understand, the speech may not be clear or the information presented may be dense). It is also harder to retrieve information if the source language is syntactically different, with different structures than the target language, forcing the interpreter to reformulate segments of the speech earlier than normal.

These three efforts combined with a coordination effort are found both in simultaneous and consecutive interpreting. The essence of the effort models implies that, instead of a large memorization capacity, the interpreter should maintain and effectively manage the information that contributes to his or her success.

Consequences of an inadequate short-term memory

Memory holds an important role in each phase of the interpreting process. Adequate functioning of short-term memory involves:

Effective processing of sounds into known words and, later, into chunks of information, with the help of long-term memory to fill in blanks;

Effective storage of these portions of information;

The opportune retrieval of the information.

An inadequate short-term memory has negative consequences, some of which may not be obvious. However, the more obvious consequences of a poor short-term memory are related to:

The omission of a qualifier (saying "powerful" instead of "extremely powerful");

The omission of a subordinate clause (saying "the thief was detained by the store's security guard" instead of "the thief, that was caught red handed, was detained by the store's security guard");

Omission of sentences.

Another obvious consequence of poor short-term memory is what we might call "approximate interpreting", in other words, the interpreter might remember what was said, but not the intensity with which it was said. For example, the interpreter might use the term "quite powerful" when the speaker actually meant to say "extremely powerful" or a neutral (and, in a sense, meaningless) connector could be chosen when the interpreter can't remember if the connection between ideas was additive, oppositional or consequential.

There are less obvious consequences, but still serious ones, when the memory requisites are larger than the memory capacity and saturation eventually occurs. This can happen, for example, when languages are very different from one another, forcing the interpreter to store a larger amount of information before being able to rephrase it. The denser the contents of the source language information, the harder it will be for the interpreter to remember all the bits of information.

To reduce these memory problems, interpreters might take notes during the consecutive or simultaneous interpretations. Names, numbers and dates should be written down, since they are very difficult, if not impossible, to retain, particularly when there are several of these elements grouped together. The same applies to complicated technical terms and for all information that is new to the interpreter, these should be written down in order to be analysed and understood.

However, the more notes the interpreter makes, more of his attention is focused upon making notes and less on the effort of listening and analysing, both of which essential to a good interpretation. So, it is important that interpreters improve their short term memory in all ways possible.

Exercises to improve short-term memory

As mentioned, for short-term memory to work properly, an effective processing of sounds into known words and, afterwards, into portions of information, the effective storage of these portions and the retrieval, at the right time, of this information is required. The ideal would be to work on each of these aspects separately, but unfortunately this is not possible. So, the exercises we suggest here involve all of these aspects.

Memory exercises should simulate the interpretation as best as possible, since the intention of these exercises are to improve memory for interpreting purposes. However, this kind of exercises should not involve bilingual activities, since these lead to different problems that the mind tends to focus on. It is highly recommended that the exercises be done alternately in both of the interpreter's languages.

For the development of short-term memory, it is necessary to use short texts, where individual words may be analysed in context and retained as portions of information, instead of being retained simply as acoustic units.

The exercises we suggest here may be used by an interpreter, a group of interpreters that work together or by a trainer that is leading a course in interpreting.

Exercise 1: shadowing

The exercise of shadowing involves repeating what the speaker says, word for word, in the same language. Normally, the interpreter will be a word or two behind the speaker as one repeats what has been said. This delay may be increased as the interpreter becomes more comfortable. This exercise is often used in preparation for simultaneous interpreting, since it teaches the interpreter to listen and talk at the same time. It is also very good for memory development, since it forces the interpreter to store and recall small groups of sounds, words and chunks of information in a relatively short period of time. However, it is complicated by the fact that the speaker continues to speak while the interpreter is recalling a previous segment, forcing the interpreter to listen and speak at the same time.

For this exercise, the texts used should be relatively small, but may increase gradually in size. If you work alone, record a text or use a speech from the television or radio. If you work in a group, one may read the text while the other repeats it.

Exercise 2: shadowing with a twist

As in the first exercise, this one involves repeating exactly what the speaker says, in the same language. However, in this exercise the repetition takes place after a short pause the speaker, making this exercise similar to consecutive interpreting. This way, the difficulties related to the act of listening and speaking at the time are eliminated, allowing the interpreter to focus specifically on memory.

For this exercise, the same texts may be used, but these should be previously divided into small segments.

Exercise 3: Freer shadowing with a twist

This exercise should only be done when the previous ones are mastered and, mainly, when you can repeat long texts without problems. This is where the interpreter's acoustic and meaning memory will be tested. In this exercise, the interpreter not only repeats what was said but, whenever possible, tries to say the same thing using other words.

Usually, this paraphrasing of the original is discouraged in legal environments, as it is considered the first step into a free translation. However, as a memory exercise it does not present any problems.

Exercise 4: attentive listening for key elements

Careful listening is an important element for memory recall. If have not listened to something carefully, it will be impossible to remember later. First, attentive listening requires identifying a speech's key points. For example, you should be capable of listening to a short narrative or a descriptive text and answer the key questions "Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?" While it might not always be possible to answer these questions in every case, the ability to answer most of them proves that you listened carefully to the key points.

In this exercise, any descriptive or narrative texts may be used and you may record the text, if you're practising alone, or you may ask a colleague to read it, if working in a group.

Exercise 5: progressively expanding the capacity to recall

Good memory must be developed gradually. This exercise was created bearing this in mind and is based on a 50 to 60-word speech that involves recalling first the main ideas and then, during the second or third pass, recalling progressively more details.

First, the interpreter should listen to the text once and identify the main ideas. Hearing the text a second time, the interpreter should be able to add more details to the main ideas. By the last pass, the interpreter should be able to recall all the details.

By knowing that it won't be necessary to recall all the details from the start, the interpreter will be more relaxed and will remember more details than if he or she were tense. As the interpreter becomes more proficient at recall, the number of times the text is heard may decrease to two and the size of the texts may increase. The ultimate goal is to be able to reproduce all the details in a speech of around 50 words, after hearing it just once.

In this exercise, any descriptive or narrative texts may be used and you may record the text, if you're practising alone, or you may ask a colleague to read it, if working in a group.

Exercise 6: visualisation

Most people are visual learners, this is, they remember things they see better than something they are told it or read on paper. Images remain in our minds much longer than abstract information. For this reason, mnemonics suggest one uses visualisation to retain different types of information by creating mental images. However, given that this kind of image is artificial, it takes a while to be created and, so, is not useful for an interpreter.

In any case, there are speeches that invoke visualisation naturally and the interpreter should be able to identify them and use visualisation to retain and recall. For example, court interpreters often have to interpret descriptions that were described by a witness (a place, a suspect, etc.). These descriptions are ideal for the use of visualisation to improve memory. Images should be visualised step by step and in sequential order, helping the interpreter recreate a whole scene.

Visualisation exercises may be completed with oral recall or, in some cases, by drawing the images in involved. In other words, recalling memories does not always have to be done through words.

In this exercise, any descriptive or narrative texts may be used and you may record the text, if you're practising alone, or you may ask a colleague to read it, if working in a group.

Exercise 7: segmentation

This exercise is based on the concept that it is easier to retain a number of limited chunks with information that just one or two larger dense chunks. Segmentation involves breaking a larger chunk of information into two or more smaller ones.

This exercise can be performed used both oral and written texts and the segmentation can also be both oral and written. You should be able to read the sentence only once and, then, segment it. The texts should contain long sentences and dense information.

Exercise 8: recognizing incoherent or ambiguous messages

Speakers are, many times, unclear. In general, incoherent and ambiguous speeches are hard to remember. This exercise aims to help you recognize incoherence or ambiguity in a speech, which is, in itself, also a way to recall the speech. After hearing a relatively incoherent and ambiguous text, you should be able to identify what aspect is incoherent or ambiguous and explain what makes it so. For example, in the sentence "João asked Miguel to sit still. Then, he got angry," we don't know if "he" refers to João or Miguel. Once the incoherence or ambiguity has been identified, it may be recalled and dealt with at the production stage of interpreting.

This exercise aims to merely identify the ambiguous or incoherent segment, in an attempt to recall it and not to deal with it in any particular way. Ambiguous or incoherent sentences or passages will be needed, so you should collect any examples of these you might come across.

Exercise 9: remembering messages you disagree with or find offensive

Confirmation bias describes the tendency to favour information that confirms one's personal belief or hypothesis. People display this bias when they collect or recall information selectively or when they interpret information in a biased way. Even if someone tries to interpret evidence in a neutral manner, he or she may recall that information selectively. This effect is called "selective recall", "confirmatory memory" or "access-biased memory". In short, it is harder to remember information that goes against what we believe in.

One way to deal with such information is to put yourself in the speaker's place. In other words, take yourself out of the picture and identify with the speaker because, in doing so, you'll be temporarily bypassing your personal beliefs and prejudices, and assuming those of the speaker. To practise this exercise, start by summarising a controversial text and, then, move on to the freer shadowing with a twist.

These exercises are only a few examples of what can be done to train short-term memory. However, every person is different, as are their minds, and these exercises may not all be effective for everyone. Besides, it is necessary to collect adequate material for the different exercises and to be very patient, as memory is something that is trained gradually.
So, we would appreciate it if you would leave comments with suggestions of other exercises that you know of or that you perform to improve your memory. With which exercises have you obtained the best results? Have you never performed any? For any particular reason? We await your opinions and comments!
Adapted from another publication by ATA

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9 exercises to improve short-term memory while interpreting

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Ever since the 19th century, memory has been classified as long-term or short-term. This difference was explored in more depth in 1968, by the Atkinson-Shiffrin memory model, that suggests that human memory involves a three phase sequence: the senses have limited ability to store information about the world without processing it for less than a second.

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Our auditory memory is our ability to retain and recall information we hear. It allows us to process and understand longer, more complex instructions, attend and listen and acquire new information. Children with reduced auditory memory can find it very challenging to follow instructions and retain learning. Helen wrote about memory and strategies to support auditory memory here.

So today I am going to write about some specific games you can play to help improve a child's auditory memory, but do take a look at Helen's post and encourage the child to use the strategies during the games. Also make sure you start at an easy level and gradually make it harder - you don't want to make it so tricky the child doesn't want to play the game!
Shopping game
Get a range of around 6 everyday objects - a spoon, a teddy, a bowl, a toy car etc, and ask you child to collect certain objects as they 'shop'. You could use a little shopping basket or a bag so they can put the items in. Start at an easy level, say 2 items and as they find this easier move on to 3 then 4.

Adult: Can you buy me a spoon and a teddy please.

After each go, make sure you return all the objects. To extend this game, rather than asking for objects in front of the child, ask them for objects from around the house. For example a tooth brush (so they have to go to the bathroom) or a sock (from a bedroom). In this way they have to move around the house and remember what they have been asked for.
Chaining games
Do you remember playing "I went to the market and I bought a ......." ? Well, this is a chaining game. You take it in turns to add a piece of information to a list and each turn you have to recall the list in full. To keep it interesting you can think of items in different categories:-

I went to space and I saw.....

I went to the zoo and I saw......

I went to the park and played on....

You can also add another element to these games by adding a description to your item. So rather than just seeing a tiger at the zoo, you could see a tiger with stripes. Instead of just seeing a monkey, you could see a monkey eating a banana.
Expanding sentences
This is similar to chaining games, but you add information to each others ideas. You could make some interesting stories. Again, when it is your turn you have to recap the sentences that has been generated so far and then add a new pieces of information

"I played minecraft."

"I played minecraft on Saturday"

"I played minecraft on Saturday and built a house out of sandstone"

"I played minecraft on Saturday and built a house out of sandstone and a creeper blew it up!".
Remembering parts of a story
When you are reading with the child, before you turn the page over you can ask specific questions about the page you have just read. What was the boys name? Where did they travel to? What did they forget? etc This is a great activity as it also helps the child learn how to extract key pieces of information.
Recall of a spoken sequence
List items and see if the child can remember them. Start at an easy level, for example 2 items and then gradually increase. You could try

numbers e.g. 5, 1, 6, 9

colours e.g. red, blue, yellow, green

animals e.g. cat, dog, fox, sheep etc.

You could extend this and when you go shopping ask the child to remember a few items that you need e.g toothpaste, apples and bread. Then as you walk around the shops they have to remember and collect their items.
Broken telephone/ whispering game
If you have a few people, you could play a game of broken telephone. One person thinks of a sentences and whispers it to the person next to them. This continues until it gets back to the first person. The sentence is then said out loud and you compare it to the original to see if it has been changed.
Remembering a specific item
You could ask the child to remember an item at the start of an activity and then ask them what it was at the end. This requires them to remember over time.
Orienteering/ treasure hunt activities
Try giving the child instructions to find a hidden object. Again, initially you could give instructions one at a time, but as they improve you could give 2 or 3 instructions together. This could be made very motivating if you hide a treat or favourite toy!

e.g. "go to the kitchen door, take 4 paces into the kitchen and look under the bowl".
Taking messages
If there is another adult or child available, you could ask the child to take a message to them. For example "Tell your brother tea is ready and he needs to come downstairs" "tell dad there is a letter for him on the table" If necessary you can let the other person know the message so they can help the child remember if they have difficulty.
Drawing to instruction
You could encourage the child to draw a picture and give them directions to follow. You can also turn this activity round and get the child to tell you what to draw and you then have a great language activity! You could describe something simple like a house, or a treasure map - whatever the child is interested in. You can always draw the outline and just get the child to put on specific details.

e.g. draw a square for house and ask the child to put on a green door on the left, then maybe 2 blue windows at the top etc Again you can increase or decrease the length of the instruction for the child.

So have a try! Remember to start at an easy level and gradually make it harder. Also find strategies that help the child and encourage them to use them in the games.

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Games to improve auditory memory - Speechbloguk

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Our auditory memory is our ability to retain and recall information we hear. It allows us to process and understand longer, more complex instructions, attend and listen and acquire new information. Children with reduced auditory memory can find it very challenging to follow instructions and retain learning.

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Abstract

For bilinguals, research suggests that both languages are constantly active and competing in the mind, even when only using one. However, this body of work has reported inconclusive results on the long-term effects of the constant parallel activation and use of more than one language on the brain. This has mostly been due to inconsistent comparisons between groups of bilinguals and monolinguals. Not all bilingualisms are the same. The investigation of the use of more than one language over a lifetime offers the opportunity to better understand the consequences of bilingualism on the brain. However, few studies have specifically looked at the long-standing effects of being an interpreter. In this paper, we review theories from the field of Translation and Interpreting Studies and provide a critical review of work that offers insight on the cognitive and neurocognitive effects that seem to arise from the unique, highly-cognitive-demanding practices experienced by interpreters.

Keywords: bilingualism, bilingual experience, cognitive benefits of bilingualism, working memory, simultaneous interpreting

Introduction

Translation and interpreting are two special subtypes of bilingual communication. While translation is conveyed through written language - from one text into another - interpreting involves the immediate verbal communication from one language to another. Not only do these two differ in what they accomplish, but each of them also has its own subfields. Literary, technical, scientific, financial, legal, and medical translation, for instance, all have unique, domain-specific differences with specialized vocabulary linked to each. In other words, the requirements for professional translators go above and beyond simply being highly competent in two languages. The same can be said for interpreting: simultaneous, consecutive, and sight interpreting are offered in different settings (medical, judicial, business, etc.), and these three modes also require specific knowledge and training because they each entail different skill sets.

There is one common characteristic to all of these: bilingualism. Research has shown that for bilinguals, both languages are active (to different degrees) in the mind, even when only using one ( Marian and Spivey, 2003). However, this body of work has reported inconclusive results with respect to how this constant parallel activation and use of more than one language affects cognition and the brain. This mostly has been due to inconsistent comparisons between groups of bilinguals and monolinguals and, to some degree, the (unconscious) belief that all bilingualisms are the same. Different bilingual cohorts including simultaneous interpreters (SIs), consecutive interpreters, among others, possess different skill sets that are unique to the needs of their professions. The investigation of their language use over a lifetime offers the opportunity to better understand the consequences of bilingualism on the brain. For instance, simultaneous interpreting (SI) involves the management of a wide array of cognitively-demanding tasks at rapid speed, including comprehension, simultaneous speech perception and production, and attention switching. Some research has shown that already shortly after training in these skills, there are indications of anatomical and functional changes in the brain ( van de Putte et al., 2018).

However, few studies have specifically looked at the long-standing effects of being an interpreter. In this paper, we first provide a review of theories from Translation and Interpreting Studies followed by a discussion on how experience with interpreting may have important neurocognitive effects that are shaped by the unique practices of interpreters, which other bilinguals and monolinguals do not have.

Bilingualism and Linguistic Competence of SIs

Grosjean (1994) defines a bilingual as any person who uses two languages or dialects on a regular basis (see also Calvo et al., 2016). Calvo et al. argue that this broad definition allows bilinguals to be "classified in terms of age of L2 acquisition (early vs. late bilinguals), simultaneity of L2 acquisition (simultaneous vs. sequential bilinguals), L2 proficiency (from incipient to low-, mid-, and high-proficiency bilinguals), and frequency of L2 use (active vs. latent bilinguals), among other variables" (para. 6). Harris (1977) argues that all bilinguals possess three competences: competence in the Li, competence in the Lj, and a third competence, that of translating from one language into another. That is what is called natural translation, which is defined by Harris as a natural skill that, like all skills, is capable of improvement under guidance.

Valdés and Angelelli (2003, p. 58) describe interpreters as a group of "language-using individuals, who, as the locus of language contact, alternately use two languages at the same time and in the same place to broker communication" between individuals who do not speak the target language. Such bilinguals are unique because they do not choose one or the other language depending on a set of factors: they work in a variety of settings and "use their two languages to convey the spoken discourse of individuals who speak one of their languages to individuals who speak their other language" (p. 59). Few studies have addressed what constitutes the "perfect grasp" - a reference to Henderson's (1982) reading on what an interpreter must master in terms of the languages themselves in order to interpret. We are left with a broad set of guidelines put forth by professional organizations and based on research on interpreting training.

The American Translation Association ( ATA, 2014) guide suggests that interpreters need to take a multistep approach to obtain a specific certification, which includes a language test for languages in which there are no interpreting skills available. Those tests are "a reliable way to assess foundational language skills necessary for interpreting. However, these oral language proficiency tests do not evaluate interpreting skills" (p. 8). The guide also argues that competencies in intercultural communication and language skills are closely related, but there are few tests available for measuring intercultural communication skills. However, there are more tests accessible that evaluate oral and written skills, such as the Interagency Language Roundtable, which the ATA states is:

A collaborative effort of US federal government agencies, academia and language specialists, has developed a 6-point skill level scale to evaluate language proficiency. The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) adapted this scale for use in academic settings and the two organizations currently work together to ensure that the two systems are complementary. The ACTFL exams, along with the Defense Language Proficiency Tests (DLPT) developed by the US Department of Defense and the European Common Framework for Languages testing, are an effective way to determine proficiency in numerous languages (p. 11).

The ATA further presents a description of translator competencies which can apply to interpreters. The first is language proficiency (reading and writing), which refers to the need for high-level reading proficiency in the source language and writing proficiency in the target language. The second competency is translation skills proficiency, related to the skills involved in transferring a message from one language to another while maintaining the same meaning in the target language. Cultural proficiency is defined as the ability to participate in social situations while understanding what is being communicated and employing appropriate pragmatics to convey a message. Finally, domain expertise refers to the advanced knowledge of the subject matter of the source text.

Napier et al. (2005) analyzed Australian Sign Language and perceptions of bilingual status among interpreters of English. The researchers compared these perceptions to their preferences for direct or inverse interpreting. The study questioned just "how bilingual" an interpreter must be in order to interpret effectively. Interestingly, results showed that many interpreters' perception and preferred language direction contravened their established practices (i.e., they preferred to interpret into the less-dominant language but typically interpreted into their first language). Napier et al. also present a review on directionality and how an interpreter's two languages are viewed in the professional world. Interpreters have their own native language (Language A), a language other than the native but of which they have a perfect command (Language B), and a language of which they have full understanding and from which they work (Language C). However, this type of description lacks scientific analysis and seems to be largely subjective. Future work will need to offer empirical analyses that support or refute these claims. In the next section, we will discuss some of the theories - specifically from a processing perspective - that describe these competences and other phenomena in interpreting.

Theories From Interpreting Studies

In interpreting studies, research has focused mostly on teaching of and training in interpreting, although there has been an increase in empirical-based work since the 2000s. Gerver (1975) notes that interpreting is a "very complex behavior...(that) can shed on more general aspects of human attention, memory, and linguistic behavior" (p. 119). Gerver (1976) proposed a model based on information processing to describe the mental operation of SI. This was the first model that considered both short- and long-term memory in SI. Gerver (1976) examined the role of input procedures, working memory (WM), decoding and encoding, and output procedures in SI. The study focused on several short-term stores for the various stages of text processing. The findings suggest that an input buffer stores a segment of the source while simultaneously processing the next segment. At this stage, processing is purely linguistic, ignoring any other type of information. Next, the processed material proceeds to an output buffer. Important to Gerver's model is that it is based on two buffers, one for each language, and that processing occurs via multiple channels.

Moser's (1978) model describes the crucial role of WM in interpreting. She explains that the message in the source language is first received by the auditory receptor system. It then becomes available for feature detection to determine whether an acoustic feature is presented, and the information is stored in the perceptual auditory storage. Using the phonological rules of the source language, a primary recognition process takes place in order to organize the acoustic features into a synthesized percept. The latter is stored in synthesized auditory memory. Then, a second process starts: the secondary recognition process will transform the sequence of synthesized syllables into words, in which "Syntactic and semantic cues are necessary for word recognition to occur; their possible nature will be described together with the explanation given for concepts in long-term memory" (p. 354). Moser uses generated abstract memory to explain short-term memory. Generated abstract memory stores processed chunks of text and performs a recoding task in co-operation with a conceptual base. The conceptual system is strongly linked to long-term memory through those operations, as long-term memory is responsible for storing all concepts, syntax and grammar rules, and lexicon.

According to Gile's (1995) Effort Models, operational components of interpreting are pooled together into four types of effort: listening and analysis, short-term memory, production, and coordination. Listening and analysis effort consists of "all comprehension-oriented operations, from the analysis of the sound waves carrying the source language speech which reaches the interpreter's ears, through the identification of words, to the final decision about the meaning of the utterance" (p. 162). Short-term memory effort deals with memory operations from the moment in which a segment is heard to the moment when it is reformulated in the target speech or alternatively disappears from memory. Production effort refers to speech output in simultaneous production in the first stage of consecutive interpreting. Finally, coordination effort is required to harmonize the other three efforts. The term effort is used to highlight the non-automatic nature of those components. Each point in time, the efforts will require different processing capacities that should be sufficient to complete the task. This model was proposed to describe the difficulties of an interpreting task and the selection of appropriate strategies and tactics.

In a recent paper by Dong and Li (2019), the researchers review empirical studies that have investigated the demands placed on language control (i.e., ensuring that one language does not interfere with the other) and processing control (i.e., multiple tasks performed under time pressure) during interpreting. Their review culminates in a proposal for an attentional control model for interpreting that accounts for both language and processing control. According to the authors, "since successful performance in interpreting requires processing control, processing control may get strengthened by continued practice in interpreting" (p. 8). Also, processing control is achieved "mainly through coordination, WM, and language processing," in which case training in interpreting would enhance "coordination ability, WM capacity, and language processing efficiency" (p. 9). The general attention control model is a theoretical explanation of language control and cognitive control that are supervised by attentional control (also referred to as a supervisory attentional system, Norman and Shallice, 1986). The attentional control is essential to normal functioning in everyday activities. The proposal for processing control is assumed to be accounted for the multi-tasking nature of interpreting, attempting to investigate the frequency and effects of switching between listening in one language and conveying the information in another language.

Although the models discussed above have helped us to better understand language processing in interpreting, they call for more empirical research in order to identify details of processing that could potentially explain their proposals. Furthermore, not one has explicitly engaged in a conversation on the role of bilingualism.

The Unique Bilingual Experiences of Interpreters

Our daily activities have profound consequences for cognition. In the case of SIs, such activities include unique, professional use of their languages, namely utilizing one language for auditory perception while using the other language for verbal production. SI involves complex parallel processes that allow for the perception, storage, recall, and transformation of auditory input. SIs must also anticipate upcoming utterances in the input ( Dong and Xie, 2014) and incorporate form-level and meaning-based processing during interlingual reformulation ( Paradis, 1994). Henrard and van Daele (2017) describe SI as being:

Highly demanding in terms of executive control, requiring a large number of cognitive functions and processes to be activated simultaneously under heavy time pressure ( Christoffels et al., 2006; Köpke and Nespoulous, 2006). This activity requires to continuously receive new information while simultaneously understanding speech, storing it in memory, and producing a translation of an earlier portion of speech ( Gerver, 1976; Lambert, 1992; Moser-Mercer, 2000). Indeed, the simultaneous interpreter must listen to and understand speech in one language, holding it in memory until it is re-encoded to be produced in another language. At the same time, the interpreter utters the translation of a portion of speech encoded earlier (para. 6).

In SI, time pressure increases the level of cognitive demand and, thus, the executive processes required for the activity. Translators, contrastively, are not affected by the flow of auditory input in the source language and do not need to process information under time pressure. This in turn causes a difference in the processing speed and the speed at which information received has to be updated and increases the likelihood of cross-language interference more than in ordinary bilinguals ( Gile, 2009). Many studies have shown that any activity with time pressure leads individuals to adopt two strategies: acceleration of information processing and filtering of information ( Edland and Svenson, 1993; Maule et al., 2000). Under time pressure, it is difficult for interpreters to process all the information, and as such, they intentionally ignore irrelevant information. Using conference interpreting as a point of departure, Obler (2012) states that "the extreme language demands of (interpreters') task provide us, as exceptional groups and exceptional performance often do, a useful tool to determine the ways the brain engages cognition to process and produce language" (p. 177).

Time pressure seems to play a different role in consecutive interpreting (CI) than in SI. In fact, some consecutive interpreters may "stay several seconds behind the speaker" and others may wait for the "speaker to stop speaking in order...to deliver the message" ( Russell, 2005, p. 136). This is strikingly different than SI given that consecutive interpreters receive speech input that are at least a couple of sentences at a time. Thus, whereas time pressure plays a significant role in the cognitive effort put forth in SI, working memory is key in CI. Liang et al. (2017) compared the effect of sentences complexity (as operationalized by dependency distance, i.e., "linear distance between two syntactically related words in a sentence," p. 1) on the cognitive constraints involved in SI and CI. The results showed that CI entails heavier cognitive demands than SI because it "requires a non-simultaneous, but sequential alternation between listening and speaking" (p. 7) (see also Christoffels and de Groot, 2005). Liang et al. proposed a revised framework to Gile's Effort Model ( Gile, 2016) that reflects the correlation between sentence formation and demands from time constraints.

Work by Macnamara (2012) has significantly informed our knowledge of the foundational capabilities that are needed to perform the cognitive functions involved in SI. In, the author examined the aptitude of several variables among SI trainees including "spoken and signed language interpreter processing; second language acquisition; and cognition, specifically memory, intelligence, information and language processing, decision-making, problem solving, multitasking, skill acquisition, expertise, and human performance" (p. 9). The theoretical frameworks of interpreting aptitudes and of second language learning aptitudes have served as a springboard for other studies. For instance, Macnamara and Conway (2016) examined whether the amount of training in SI, the trainees' cognitive abilities, and their initial SI performance could predict the final SI performance at the end of 2 years of training. Although all of these factors positively predicted final SI performance, WM was a significantly stronger predictor with more consistent results than the other factors. Similar results were reported by Macnamara et al. (2011) who found that personality characteristics such as "risk-taking orientation and emotion-cognition integration style, and intrinsic motivation to engage in complex cognitive tasks" (p. 107) also predict SI performance.

In Hiltunen et al. (2016), WM and executive control of SIs, consecutive interpreters, foreign language teachers, and non-interpreter bilinguals were compared. The results from a free-recall task and a cocktail-party dichotic listening task demonstrated expertise-dependent differences between all four groups that can be explained by their conditions at work. For SIs, there are demanding linguistic tasks in which attention is continuously divided up between listening to the source text, formulating and uttering the output, and monitoring the equivalence of both. For consecutive interpreters, there are high demands for resisting external distractions at work. The general implication from Hiltunen et al.'s study is that these differences seem to be a reflection of the distinct experiences in each of their professional fields.

Timarová et al. (2014) studied WM executive control among SIs on a battery of four central executive tasks exploring inhibition (though a flanker task and anti-saccade task), updating (using a 2-back task), and shifting (using a number-letter task) during three simultaneous interpretations. The results suggested that although some WM functions seem to be related to interpreting experience, others such as automatic response inhibition, updating, and attention switching are not. Overall, the authors argue that attentional control is an important component of the SI process. Timarová et al. (2015) further elaborate this argument by testing the same cohort of interpreters on WM capacity (letter span, Corsi task, complex span) and on several measures of interpreting performance (lexical, semantic and syntactic processing, temporal delay, vocabulary richness, and dealing with speed). The findings showed a dissociation between verbal and spatial memory and a negative correlation between age, WM measures, and general cognitive ability. The implications to be drawn from these two studies is that "processes tapping the storage component of WM do not seem to play a crucial role in professionals with a higher degree of skill acquisition" (p. 123) (see also Köpke and Nespoulous, 2006; Köpke and Signorelli, 2012). These highly-cognitive-demanding experiences in two (or more) languages are particularly interesting in their long-term impact on cognition (in contrast to more short-term effects of training), since experimental studies including conditions of high cognitive demands revealed cognitive superior performance ( Costa et al., 2009; Diamond, 2014). In the next section we will review the potential cognitive and neural effects, specifically among SI professionals, both short-term and long-term, that may arise from the parallel employment of language and processing control.

Cognitive and Neurocognitive Effects of Interpreting

A Cognitive Advantage for Interpreters?

García (2014) put forward the hypothesis of an "interpreter advantage," which suggests that the daily training and long-term use of such a unique combination of cognitive and linguistic demands a professional interpreter is faced with should result in enhancement of linguistic and cognitive skills, but only those closely related to these very specific, profession-related demands. Due to a special, dual-language condition that is present right from the start of interpretation training, García (2014) concluded that aspects of the interpreter advantage develop shortly after the onset of formal intense training, rather than after several years of experience in the profession (see Köpke and Nespoulous, 2006; Elmer et al., 2010), as for trainees it is necessary to execute interpreting tasks properly from the very beginning. These training-induced changes (early changes as described in section "Effects of Training in Interpreting") might leave their trace and substantiate in the professional, highly experienced interpreter's brain (see section "Effects of Training in Interpreting"). Of course, changes in neurocognitive systems are the consequence of sustained use and long-term professional coping with the specific professional demands. Moreover, behavioral advantages were found to correlate with time on task, i.e., the hours of practice ( Elmer et al., 2014), and with years of professional experience ( Santilli et al., 2019). García (2014) therefore speculates that these rather task-specific skills may result in more efficient abilities in the linguistic and cognitive domain and be observable even in non-interpreting tasks, but only in restricted linguistic and cognitive subdomains (see García et al., 2019, for review).

Since SI is first of all based on the perception of key information in the incoming sound stream and the comprehension of the constantly unfolding speech, SI may have trained the specific skills taxed in professional settings. Thus, only some bilingual verbal skills are behaviorally enhanced. For the auditory domain, Elmer et al. (2014) showed enhanced auditory perception (verbal and non-verbal sounds) for expert SI compared to professional musicians and non-expert controls. This might point at superior abilities to extract and recognize relevant information from complex auditory input.

Storage of information and keeping it transiently active is crucial for expert SI due to the delay between input and output and the continuous new information. Studies have shown better short term and working memory in terms of larger memory spans (reading span, word span, and speaking span) when concurrent cognitive operations (e.g., mathematical calculations, speaking, reading aloud) were included ( Christoffels et al., 2006; Yudes et al., 2011, 2013; Signorelli et al., 2012; Babcock and Vallesi, 2017). Signorelli et al. (2012) compared younger and older interpreters and non-interpreters on reading span, non-word repetition, and order- and category-cued recall abilities. The results showed that interpreters outperformed non-interpreters on reading span and non-word repetition but not on cued recall. The authors interpret this as evidence that interpreters are better at manipulating information in WM and processing sub-lexical phonological representations but not at short-term retention of words. This ability to store new information and to process it in parallel is considered a benefit from the systematic entrenchment of SIs' profession.

Babcock and Vallesi (2017) recently asked an important question as depicted in the title of their article, "Are simultaneous interpreters expert bilinguals, unique bilinguals, or both?" The results of the study did not reveal advantages in conflict resolution or switching cost for interpreters where previous advantages among non-interpreter bilinguals have been found. However, the interpreters showed interpretation-specific advantages along with larger verbal and spatial memory spans compared to non-interpreter bilinguals. The authors conclude that "interpreters do not continue to garner benefits from bilingualism, but they do appear to possess benefits specific to their experience with simultaneous interpreting" (p. 403).

In contrast to trainees, expert SI show this memory advantage more generally: for shapes ( Babcock and Vallesi, 2017), digits ( Bajo et al., 2000; Stavrakaki et al., 2012; but see Köpke and Nespoulous, 2006; Santilli et al., 2019, for contradicting findings), letters ( Babcock and Vallesi, 2017), non-words ( Stavrakaki et al., 2012), words in L1 and L2 ( Christoffels et al., 2006), and for updating ( Henrard and van Daele, 2017). The investigation of recall abilities in professional SI has shown that only if the task involves articulatory suppression (what is similar to the professional task of SI), expert SI have a larger recall capacity than other multilinguals ( Bajo et al., 2000; Köpke and Nespoulous, 2006; Yudes et al., 2012). If rehearsal is not impeded, they perform similarly to control groups (e.g., Hiltunen et al., 2016).

Interlingual reformulation, production, and monitoring of the translation are yet another set of specific skills trained in expert SI. Probably related to the enhanced training of retrieval of highly specific lexical items when time for lexical search is scarce, comprising intra- and inter-linguistic lexical search, professional SI showed superior performance when tested for word knowledge/wider vocabulary ( Christoffels et al., 2006), phonological and semantic verbal fluency ( Santilli et al., 2019), word translation ( Santilli et al., 2019), and for manipulation of non-words. Interestingly, expert SIs were better at recognizing ( Bajo et al., 2000), repeating ( Signorelli et al., 2012), and recalling non-words ( Stavrakaki et al., 2012). As mentioned earlier, SIs need to be prepared for the unexpected and anticipate upcoming utterances in a constantly unfolding speech under time pressure. Hence this advantage in efficient within- and cross-language processing and managing unfamiliar information can be explained, such as the translation of highly infrequent words.

Since expert SI do not need to switch between their languages in one modality but rather use one in the auditory modality and the other in the verbal production modality, there seems not to be any need for alternating inhibition. Both languages need to be active in parallel, but for the processing in one specific modality. In general, inhibition is apparently not a skill trained specifically in SI ( Ibáñez et al., 2010, but see Henrard and van Daele, 2017, for different types of inhibition, in particular resistance of proactive inhibition), since tasks assessing interference control did not show an interpreter advantage, e.g., the Stroop ( Köpke and Nespoulous, 2006) or the Simon task ( Yudes et al., 2011).

Effects of Training in Interpreting

We have established that the language experiences of SIs are unique from other bilinguals, but do these experiences offer additional cognitive and/or neurocognitive benefits above and beyond typical bilingualism? If so, is this because of their intensive training to become an interpreter, their years of experience being an interpreter, or both? Here we briefly describe some studies that have investigated the effects that training in interpreting has on cognition and particularly on WM and shifting.

Notwithstanding, Tzou et al. (2012) compared the WM capacity of interpreting students in their first year of training to that of interpreting students in their second year. While WM span was slightly higher for the students in the second year, this difference was not significant. However, WM was significantly higher for interpreting students with greater L2 proficiency, prompting the researchers to argue that language proficiency may explain differences in interpreting performance and WM and that language processing skills (rather than WM) may be enhanced by formal training in interpreting.

Dong and colleagues have investigated the effects of training in consecutive interpreting that "requires both languages to be constantly active rather than alternately inhibited" ( García et al., 2019, p. 8). For instance, Dong and Xie (2014) found that students with more interpreting training outperformed those with little to no interpreting training in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, but not in the Flanker task. They argued that language interpreting experience significantly contributes to mental set shifting enhancement in cognitive control but not to inhibition. Other studies using tasks of attentional ( Babcock and Vallesi, 2017; Babcock et al., 2017), inhibitory ( Köpke and Nespoulous, 2006; van de Putte et al., 2018), and switching ( Babcock et al., 2017; van de Putte et al., 2018) skills similarly fail to find an advantage even after 2 years of training. In another study on how training in consecutive interpreting affects WM, Dong et al. (2018) found that as opposed to WM, updating efficiency was enhanced by training. Similarly, Dong and Liu's (2016) study that compared training in consecutive interpreting to training in written translation showed that training in interpreting produced significant cognitive advantages in switching and updating, whereas training in translation only uncovered marginally significant improvements in updating.

Neurocognitive Effects Among Trainees, SI, and Highly-Proficient Bi-/Multilinguals

Professional interpreters seem to show a specific neuroanatomical and neurofunctional profile of verbal and non-verbal processes. Early neuroanatomical changes related to sustained interpreting practice after years of experience are firstly related to reductions in volume of the bilateral middle anterior cingulate gyrus, the middle anterior insula, the superior middle gyrus, and the pars triangularis, and secondly of changes in gray matter density of these areas as well as of the caudate nucleus, with expert interpreters showing a negative correlation with expertise (measured in terms of hours of practice) ( Elmer et al., 2014). Importantly, these areas are key to verbal and non-verbal functions such as WM and phonetic processing, as well as sensory-to-motor coupling. Similarly, changes in gray matter density have been observed as reflections of life-long bilingualism ( Abutalebi et al., 2014, 2015).

Contrary to Elmer et al.'s (2014) finding, Becker et al. (2016) reported that the interpreters in their study had left frontal lobes with more gray matter density and volumetric increase in this cognitive control area. The volume was negatively associated with reduced mixing costs in switching tasks, which points at brain-level morphometric changes caused by specific processing demands. Becker et al. (2016) also found changes in functional connectivity for professional interpreters. They reported higher global functional efficiency in the left frontal pole and more functional connectivity to the left inferior and middle temporal gyri during switching and dual-task performance.

Neurofunctional changes have been documented in a study using a semantic decision task based on translation equivalents in different language combinations. While professional interpreters had to judge the semantic correctness of noun-pairs, Elmer et al. (2010) recorded EEG and found enhanced N400 for L1-L1, L1-L2, and L2-L2 noun pair judgments, but not for the commonly trained translation direction L2-L1. The authors suggested training-induced changes in sensitivity to semantic processing in these language conditions compared to the multilingual control group. Moreover, when investigating the functional connectivity in the data of this earlier study, Elmer and Kühnis (2016) found stronger theta-band coupling between the auditory cortex (BA 41/42) and Broca's area (BA 44/45) when the professional interpreters were performing the task compared to the multilingual controls. Adaptations in relation to professional processing demands were found in terms of a positive correlation between the connectivity pattern and interpreters' amount of training.

Overall, these studies start to indicate a specific neuroanatomical and neurofunctional profile and stress the experience-related adaptations of the brain as some of the changes were directly related to years of experience in the profession. In the same vein, other researchers have (rightly) advocated that care must be taken when interpreting these results. Calvo et al. (2016) note that "evidence of enhancements induced by interpreting expertise is not entirely robust [and that] studies on possible neuroanatomical changes associated with the bilingual experience have yielded ambiguous results" (para. 9).

Discussion and Moving Forward

In this paper, we have discussed the nature of the intense and unique bilingual experiences of interpreters and their consequences. We have noted that SI is a highly-complex task that requires several different processes in parallel. Intense training is needed so that SIs can adapt to these cognitive demands. There are robust short-term cognitive effects from training in interpreting but importantly, a clearer picture of how profession-related specific skills leave observable long-term traces in the cognitive and neurocognitive domains starts to emerge. It should be noted that only relatively few empirical studies focusing on brain and cognition of SI have been conducted to date, with relatively small sample sizes, and a variety of tests has been used to evaluate executive control. Henrard and van Daele (2017) therefore conclude that definitive conclusions cannot yet be drawn, especially when comparing participants across dissimilar groups (e.g., with respect to their training, language experiences, age, proficiency, etc.).

One commonly mentioned caveat in bilingualism research (in particular on the bilingual advantage) is the heterogeneity within the samples (age of L2 onset, manner of acquisition, age, proficiency, frequency of language use, SES, migration experience, language switching habits, etc.) ( Calvo et al., 2016; see Antoniou, 2019, for a recent review). Kroll and Bialystok (2013) argue that bilingualism must be viewed as a continuous rather than dichotomous variable. Valian (2015) reiterates this view, noting that there is quite a bit of variability among bilinguals with respect to their linguistic, cognitive, and social characteristics, as well as their professional experience and educational background. This dynamic and variable nature of bilingualism makes it difficult to compare groups of bilinguals and draw concrete conclusions.

One may think that because SIs work in the same profession, they may be a more homogenous group. But still, their language acquisition trajectories are different, and often samples are composed of different language pairs, e.g., two Roman languages vs. one Roman and one Semitic language. It is yet unknown what impact language typology has on the interpreter's advantage ( Antoniou and Wright, 2017). Moreover, some of the relevant information on participants' profile with regard to the type of interpreting and training background is incomplete or unreported. The International Organization for Standardization's language subcommittee developed the first set of standards for various types of interpreting. For each type of intercepting - conference, media, escort, military, medical, court, etc. - professionals are trained on different techniques relevant to their practice ( Bancroft, 2015). This variation in training among participants likely affects the way they perform in experimental tasks. Unfortunately, their training background is usually not disclosed in studies, making it difficult to explain whether their performance is at all related to their background. Not all interpreters are the same. And for the control group, the caveat remains in particular concerning their language use and the frequency of executing tasks similar to interpreting.

One of the remaining questions linked to crucial information on participants' profile is how to get an objective measure of professional experience. The commonly used indicator in the studies on SI is years of experience. This does not, however, include an estimate of the frequency of actual professional activity, or if SI is a full-time employment or only part-time. The number of hours spent on SI per week or month might diverge greatly between participants; this seems, however, to be a more precise measure of professional experience and should be used in future studies. Other information that often goes unreported but should be included is a description of interpreters' knowledge of languages other than the two being used in the study. For instance, do they use other languages in their profession, and if so, what is their relative proficiency, what is the directionality of SI for these languages, and how often and in what contexts are these languages engaged? In SI, within-subjects analyses can be conducted under several experimental conditions to ensure maximum control of extraneous participant variables. Researchers can use statistical procedures to reduce cloudy effects on dependent variables, making the data less noisy. Also, although the number of SIs is much less than ordinary bilinguals, every effort should be made to increase sample sizes in studies on SI.

Interpreters possess a unique bilingual life experience, leading to profound consequences for cognition. They are challenged on a daily basis to perform a task that requires a large number of cognitive functions that must be activated under time pressure ( Christoffels et al., 2006; Köpke and Nespoulous, 2006). These highly cognitive-demanding experiences are argued to lead to long-term impact in restricted linguistic and cognitive subdomains ( Dillinger, 1990; Fabbro et al., 1991; Bajo et al., 2000; Yudes et al., 2013; García, 2014). While several studies report superior WM and concurrent cognitive operations for interpreters ( Christoffels et al., 2006; Yudes et al., 2011; Signorelli et al., 2012; Yudes et al., 2013; Babcock and Vallesi, 2017), other studies fail to find an advantage or superior performance among interpreters in several tasks of attention, switching, and inhibitory control. Although we still do not have exhaustive information on interpreters' cognitive skills, the data that have been discussed have shown that some inconsistencies may be attributed by the lack of controlling for the participants' linguistic and non-linguistic skills. Those skills vary in degree depending on the task at hand. For instance, different levels of bilingualism will result in different sets of data, generating conclusions that, if not carefully analyzed, can be skewed. Responses to qualitative data (e.g., written survey questions), commonly used to measure perception, must be carefully scrutinized to examine their validity. Some studies that were discussed here, especially those from the 2000s, have presented inconclusive results likely due to the various approaches to comparing groups. It is challenging to find well-trained, highly-proficient interpreters with extensive years of experience who would be available to participate in a study, and to recruit a very large cohort for ample data collection is even more difficult. From our point of view, we have noticed inconsistencies across measures, failures to acknowledge problems of convergent validity, replication reliability, and task impurity. These issues must be resolved as research in this area moves forward.

It is important to keep in mind that in the 1960s and certainly by the early 1970s, interpreting researchers moved from "speculative theorizing" ( Gile, 1990) to substantive interdisciplinary inquiries. It is perhaps interdisciplinarity that can help to bridge traditional boundaries and address issues that have been explained in several models, albeit untested: the cognitive model of interpretation ( Wilcox and Shaffer, 2005); the semiotic model of interpretation ( Ingram, 1978); the communication model ( Stewart et al., 1998); the sociolinguistic model of interpreting ( Cokely, 1992); the pedagogical model ( Colonomos, 1992). Having a better description of participants' profiles in studies with interpreters is a good start, as a way to clarifying to whom the study findings apply. This could possibly improve the generalizability of the findings as well as diminish internal threats to validity.

Author Contributions

AF, JS, and JF equally contributed to this conceptual analysis. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Articles from Frontiers in Psychology are provided here courtesy of Frontiers Media SA

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Cognitive and Neurocognitive Effects From the Unique Bilingual Experiences of Interpreters

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For bilinguals, research suggests that both languages are constantly active and competing in the mind, even when only using one. However, this body of work has reported inconclusive results on the long-term effects of the constant parallel activation ...

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"Glossing" is what you call it when you write one language in another. The written information is known as "gloss."

When we see someone signing and we write it down or type it out sign for sign and include various notations to account for the facial and body grammar that goes with the signs--we are "glossing ASL."

When you gloss, you are not trying to interpret a language. Rather you are attempting to transcribe it. Your goal is to write it down, type it, or otherwise represent it in text form -- word for word.

So, why don't we just call it writing?

The difference between "writing in a language" and "glossing of a language" has to do with the fact that the target language may not have equivalent words to represent the original language.

For example, in American Sign Language (ASL) we have a sign known as "PAH!" Loosely translated it means "At last! Finally! Success! Ta da! Voil! Presto!) This "sign" requires a plosive sound to be made as if saying "pah!" (Which makes the gloss of PAH! a rather obvious choice.) ASL also uses special signs known as ASL classifiers that are difficult to write in English. For example, there is a sign that uses a "3-handshape" which is commonly used to represent "vehicles." This sign not only represents a vehicle but it also can include information regarding the location, orientation, speed, direction, and movement path of the vehicle.

This sign is glossed as 3-CL: " additional information goes here."
Example: 3-CL: "goes uphill"
You might also see a "classifier 3" glossed as "CL-3" or "CL:3."

Glossing allows researchers (and students) to make notes in their own language regarding the second language. For example, an English-speaking researcher would use gloss to transcribe the "clicks" of the tongue that occur in the Bantu languages of South Africa (such as Zulu).

Below are some conventional (typical / normal) "glossing" symbols and notation.

ASL Glossing Conventions

"+" When you see a plus symbol it means to repeat the sign.

"!" When a sign gloss has an "!" exclamation point after it that means you should emphasize the sign. Sign it a bit faster, stronger, or more exaggerated than normal.

"#" The # symbol, which goes by many names, (number sign, crosshatch character, pound sign, hash, octothorpe, etc.) is used to indicate the lexicalization of a fingerspelled word. (For example: #ALL, #WHAT, #BUSY). When you "lexicalize" a fingerspelled word, you mutate the spelling so that it is produced more like a sign than a fingerspelled word.

PRO.1 / PRO.2 / PRO.3 These terms refer to "first person," "second person," and "third person" pronouns. PRO.1 means "I or me." PRO.2 means "you." PRO.3 means "he, she, him, or her." For example, the ASL gloss "PRO.3 LOVE PRO.1" is typically translated as: "He loves me" or "She loves me"-- depending on whether the subject is a male or female. You might also see these terms glossed as PRO-1, PRO-2, and PRO-3.

"QM-wiggle" The gloss: "qm-w" stands for "question mark wiggle." That is the process of holding an "x" hand up at the end of a sentence and wiggling the index finger (flexing it a few times.).

DASHES: When you see dashes between letters, that generally means to fingerspell the word. Also, sometimes you might see "fs" when someone is writing about ASL. The letters "fs" are sometimes used as a shorthand for "fingerspell."

IX The "IX" stands for "INDEX." Which means to point toward a certain location, object, or person.

"CL" When you see a "CL" it generally refers to a "classifier." 3-CL: " additional information goes here." Example: 3-CL: "goes uphill" You might also see a "classifier 3" glossed as "CL-3" or "CL:3."

DASHES: When you see dashes between letters, that generally means to fingerspell the word. Also, sometimes you might see "fs." The letters "fs" are sometimes used as a shorthand for "fingerspell."

What is another name for the rules that researchers have generally agreed upon for typical or standard ways to do things? * conventions

What term means choosing an appropriate English word for signs in order to write them down? * Glossing

List some sample conventions of glossing: * Sample 1: small caps, Sample 2: #, Sample 3: M-A-R-Y, Sample 4: _____t

When glossing, what do we represent with small capital letters preceded by the # symbol? * lexicalized fingerspelled words

What do we call the facial expressions that accompany certain signs? * Nonmanual signals (or nonmanual markers, or NMMs)

What kind of features are indicated on a line above sign glosses? * Nonmanual signals and eye gaze

When glossing, what do we use "small capital letters" in English to represent? * Signs

When glossing, what is represented by dashes between small capital letters? * full fingerspellling

What are some glossed examples of lexicalized fingerspellling? * #WHAT, #BURN, #ALL

Note: The GLOSS label of an ASL sign doesn't equal "English." For example, the sign glossed as "FINE" doesn't mean all of the things that the English word "fine" means. I wouldn't use the sign FINE to sign, "I paid the fine for my ticket." The sign glossed as "GLASSES" also means: Gallaudet University, Thomas Gallaudet, and Moses.

Sample gloss: YESTERDAY PRO-1 INDEX-[at] WORK HAPPEN SOMEONE! MAN CL:1-"walked_past_quickly" I NEVER SEE PRO-3 BEFORE. That sentence would be generally mean: "Yesterday at work a stranger (some guy I've never seen before) rushed past me.

A challenge faced by curriculum writers and ASL teachers when describing how to efficiently sign "What is your name?" -- is how to efficiently gloss the process of signing "NAME" while furrowing your eyebrows to create the concept of "what" non-manually.

(In other words: Use your face not your hands to create the meaning of "what?" and add it to the sign "NAME.")

Classrooms are not real life. Teachers use teacher-talk (or in our case, "teacher-signing") which is analogous (similar) to motherese.

In real life:
Deaf people typically do not sign "YOU WHAT NAME?"

Deaf people typically do not sign "YOU NAME WHAT?"

Deaf people do typically sign "YOU NAME?"-[while furrowing the eyebrows to create the concept of what]

The point here is that if we want ASL students to learn to sign like Deaf people then we need to stop using three signs to do the work of "two signs and a facial expression."

One approach to glossing "What is your name?" while emphasizing the importance of using facial expressions instead of unnecessary signs -- would be to lowercase the word "what" and attach it to the sign NAME.

For example: "YOU what-NAME?" (The lowercase what should not be signed but shown on your face as furrowed eyebrows.)

Or to help emphasize that we don't need to actually sign WHAT -- we could type: "YOU [what]-NAME?"

However, students usually don't take the time to ask "Why is the word 'what' lowercased?"

While there is no perfect approach to writing ASL and indicate the non-manual features in a way that can be typed easily -- an approach would be to gloss "What is your name?" as:
"YOU NAME-[what]?"

That way when students mistakenly choose to add a third sign (WHAT) to the other two signs "YOU NAME" (instead of just efficiently furrowing their eyebrows and not using a separate sign for WHAT) at least they will still be putting the "WH"-question at the end.

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Glossing Instructions

What is Glossing?
Gloss is a written or typed approximation of (or notes regarding) another language. ASL gloss is a written or typed approximation of ASL typically using English words as "labels" for each sign along with various grammatical notes.

The problem with glossing is the student's expectation that this sign means that in English, which is not always the case. Sometimes one sign can have multiple meanings, and the meaning of that sign is dependent on the context of the sentence or even the surrounding context.

What's the difference between content and context?

is the words in the sentence. It's essentially all the words that are in the "container."

are the circumstances, the surrounding content, and the meaning behind the content, which are implied outside of that container.

Let's examine that a little bit more.

The sign can also mean . The difference in meaning is conveyed in the non-manual markers.

Suppose, the person signs: YESTERDAY MORNING I (WAKE-UP/SURPRISE) 7 O'CLOCK.

Disregarding the difference in facial expression, let's just take a look at the sign itself. Which sign makes the most sense in that sentence? Do most people get a surprise at 7:00 am? When do we normally get a surprise? Are we surprised out of bed? Is someone holding a surprise party in our bedroom? Most likely not. The best word for that sentence is WAKE-UP.

Another example: YOU LIKE (WAKE-UP/SURPRISE) PARTY? Do you like surprise parties or wake-parties? Which meaning would fit the best?

So, your challenge as the student is to watch the sentences in each of the sentence translation assignment and select the BEST word to match content, as well as the context.
Glossing Conventions
Glossing is a linguistic exercise. For a more in depth look at glossing, read: ASL Glossing Conventions .

I do not require all those the conventions listed on that page. Instead we are going to use a much more simplified format.
Uppercase vs Lowercase
The word in UPPERCASE contains the primary meaning/main heading:

The word in lowercase tells something about the main heading: or you-SHOW-me

Notice how there is a hyphen between SHOW and me? That hyphen connects the object (me) to the verb (SHOW). And technically if I signed two different words, then I should type SHOW ME

If there is no hyphen, then that means two separate words are being signed here. But that is not the case for SHOW-me. The meaning is shown in the movement.

In glossing, not including the indexing format, this should read: TELL-me HOW YOU FEEL.

If you type TELL ME instead of TELL-me, that will be marked wrong.

If you type tell-ME, that is not the correct format and it will be marked wrong.
Incorporating Numbers
If I type TWO WEEKS (without the hyphen), that means I'm signing two separate words TWO and WEEK. However, if I type two-WEEK or , that means that the number is blended into the sign. If you type TWO WEEKS and 2-WEEKS was signed, that will be marked wrong.
Incorporating tenses
If I type PAST WEEK, that means I'm signing two separate words PAST and WEEK.

But if I type , that means the tense is incorporated into the sign. If you type PAST WEEK and past-WEEK was signed, that will be marked wrong.
Incorporating repetition
Sign repetition usually means that the event happens more than once. For example, the concept of working hard or for long periods of time would require repetitive movement: or .Note: the sign "hard" is not signed at all. It's implied. The plus sign indicates that the word is being signed more than once and that the meaning changes. For example: WORK vs WORK++
Indexing
This refers to the personal pronouns and pointing towards an object: For example: he, she, it, they, those, that.

This is where it can get a little complicated. Not interested in complicated assignments or instructions. If indexing occurs, you have two choices. You can type out: INDEX-he or you can use the abbreviation IX (for index).

Let's look at this sentence: TODAY I NEED GO WORK

In glossing, this should read: TODAY IX-me NEED GO WORK.

In glossing, not including the indexing format, this should read: TELL-me HOW IX-you FEEL.
Fingerspelling
To differentiate between the sign for CAT and the fingerspelled word for CAT, you need to include some dashes. CAT is the sign. C-A-T is the fingerspelled word.

In glossing, this should read MY GRANDPA WORK F-A-R-M.
Lexicalized fingerspelling
This is fingerspelling that has changed over time to take on the characteristics of a sign. A lexicalized fingerspelled word tends to look like and be expressed as a single sign rather than a collection of fingerspelled letters. Some ASL books or articles indicate lexicalized fingerspelling by putting a # symbol in front of the letters. For example: #ALL.

Here's a little bit more on the topic: Lexicalized Fingerspelling

The fingerspelled word D-O-G is signed with hand up right, palm out. It's just regular fingerspelling.

The lexicalized fingerspelling of the word is signed with the palm up.

For example, this sentence: WALK DOG, YOU MIND?

In glossing this should read: WALK #DOG, you-MIND?
Instructions: for the sentence translations:
Type the gloss for each sentence in the EXACT order it was signed. All gloss must be in UPPER case and the descriptors in lower case.

Type the translation of the glossed sentence in proper English. The English translation must be italicized and use sentence case. The sentence MUST make sense.

For example:

Ask the student where he lives.

Are you busy two weeks from now?

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Gloss: American Sign Language (ASL) glossing information and resources.

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Self-Paced Modules for Ed Terp Skill Development

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Self-Paced Modules for Ed Terp Skill Development

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“Team Interpreting: Best Practices” by Debra Russell 

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“Team Interpreting: Best Practices” by Debra Russell 

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The Described and Captioned Media Program is a free-loan library of accessible educational media for use by teachers and family member of K-12 students with a vision or hearing loss. This U.S. Department of Education-funded program also serves as a clearinghouse of accessibility information and training resources as well as a gateway to accessibility information from partnering organizations.

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Take-home Messages

Working memory is a limited capacity store for retaining information for a brief period while performing mental operations on that information.

Working memory is a multi-component system which includes the central executive, visuospatial sketchpad, phonological loop, and episodic buffer.

Working memory is important for reasoning, learning and comprehension.

Working memory theories assume that complex reasoning and learning tasks require a mental workspace to hold and manipulate information.

Atkinson's and Shiffrin's (1968) multi-store model was extremely successful in terms of the amount of research it generated. However, as a result of this research, it became apparent that there were a number of problems with their ideas concerning the characteristics of short-term memory.

Fig 1 . The Working Memory Model (Baddeley and Hitch, 1974)
Baddeley and Hitch (1974) argue that the picture of short-term memory (STM) provided by the Multi-Store Model is far too simple.

According to the Multi-Store Model, STM holds limited amounts of information for short periods of time with relatively little processing. It is a unitary system. This means it is a single system (or store) without any subsystems. Whereas working memory is a multi-component system (auditory, and visual).

Therefore, whereas short-term memory can only hold information, working memory can both retain and process information.

Working memory is short-term memory . However, instead of all information going into one single store, there are different systems for different types of information.

Fig 2 . The Working Memory Model Components (Baddeley and Hitch, 1974)
The labels given to the components (see fig 2) of the working memory reflect their function and the type of information they process and manipulate. The phonological loop is assumed to be responsible for the manipulation of speech based information, whereas the visuospatial sketchpad is assumed to be responsible for manipulating visual images.

The model proposes that every component of working memory has a limited capacity, and also that the components are relatively independent of each other.

The Central Executive

The central executive is the most important component of the model, although little is known about how it functions. It is responsible for monitoring and coordinating the operation of the slave systems (i.e., visuospatial sketchpad and phonological loop) and relates them to long-term memory (LTM).

The central executive decides which information is attended to and which parts of the working memory to send that information to be dealt with. For example, two activities sometimes come into conflict, such as driving a car and talking.

Rather than hitting a cyclist who is wobbling all over the road, it is preferable to stop talking and concentrate on driving. The central executive directs attention and gives priority to particular activities.

p> The central executive is the most versatile and important component of the working memory system. However, despite its importance in the working-memory model, we know considerably less about this component than the two subsystems it controls.

Baddeley suggests that the central executive acts more like a system which controls attentional processes rather than as a memory store. This is unlike the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad, which are specialized storage systems. The central executive enables the working memory system to selectively attend to some stimuli and ignore others.

Baddeley (1986) uses the metaphor of a company boss to describe the way in which the central executive operates. The company boss makes decisions about which issues deserve attention and which should be ignored.

They also select strategies for dealing with problems, but like any person in the company, the boss can only do a limited number of things at the same time. The boss of a company will collect information from a number of different sources.

If we continue applying this metaphor, then we can see the central executive in working memory integrating (i.e., combining) information from two assistants (the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad) and also drawing on information held in a large database (long-term memory).

The Phonological Loop

The phonological loop is the part of working memory that deals with spoken and written material. It consists of two parts (see Figure 3).

The phonological store (linked to speech perception) acts as an inner ear and holds information in a speech-based form (i.e., spoken words) for 1-2 seconds. Spoken words enter the store directly. Written words must first be converted into an articulatory (spoken) code before they can enter the phonological store.

The articulatory control process (linked to speech production) acts like an inner voice rehearsing information from the phonological store. It circulates information round and round like a tape loop. This is how we remember a telephone number we have just heard. As long as we keep repeating it, we can retain the information in working memory.

The articulatory control process also converts written material into an articulatory code and transfers it to the phonological store.

The Visuospatial Sketchpad

The visuospatial sketchpad ( inner eye) deals with visual and spatial information. Visual information refers to what things look like. It is likely that the visuospatial sketchpad plays an important role in helping us keep track of where we are in relation to other objects as we move through our environment (Baddeley, 1997).

As we move around, our position in relation to objects is constantly changing and it is important that we can update this information. For example, being aware of where we are in relation to desks, chairs and tables when we are walking around a classroom means that we don"t bump into things too often!

The sketchpad also displays and manipulates visual and spatial information held in long-term memory. For example, the spatial layout of your house is held in LTM. Try answering this question: How many windows are there in the front of your house?

You probably find yourself picturing the front of your house and counting the windows. An image has been retrieved from LTM and pictured on the sketchpad.

Evidence suggests that working memory uses two different systems for dealing with visual and verbal information. A visual processing task and a verbal processing task can be performed at the same time.

It is more difficult to perform two visual tasks at the same time because they interfere with each other and performance is reduced. The same applies to performing two verbal tasks at the same time. This supports the view that the phonological loop and the sketchpad are separate systems within working memory.

Empirical Evidence for Working Memory

What evidence is there that working memory exists, that it is made up of a number of parts, that it performs a number of different tasks?

The working memory model makes the following two predictions:

1 . If two tasks make use of the same component (of working memory), they cannot be performed successfully together.

2 . If two tasks make use of different components, it should be possible to perform them as well as together as separately.

Key Study: Baddeley and Hitch (1976)

Aim: To investigate if participants can use different parts of working memory at the same time.

Method: Conducted an experiment in which participants were asked to perform two tasks at the same time (dual task technique) - a digit span task which required them to repeat a list of numbers, and a verbal reasoning task which required them to answer true or false to various questions (e.g., B is followed by A?).

Results: As the number of digits increased in the digit span tasks, participants took longer to answer the reasoning questions, but not much longer - only fractions of a second. And, they didn"t make any more errors in the verbal reasoning tasks as the number of digits increased.

Conclusion: The verbal reasoning task made use of the central executive and the digit span task made use of the phonological loop.

The Episodic Buffer

The original model was updated by Baddeley (2000) after the model failed to explain the results of various experiments. An additional component was added called the episodic buffer.

The episodic buffer acts as a "backup" store which communicates with both long-term memory and the components of working memory.

Fig 3 . Updated Model to include the Episodic Buffer

Critical Evaluation

Strengths

Researchers today generally agree that short-term memory is made up of a number of components or subsystems. The working memory model has replaced the idea of a unitary (one part) STM as suggested by the multistore model.

The working memory model explains a lot more than the multistore model. It makes sense of a range of tasks - verbal reasoning, comprehension, reading, problem-solving and visual and spatial processing. And the model is supported by considerable experimental evidence.

The working memory applies to real-life tasks :

- reading (phonological loop)

- problem solving (central executive)

- navigation (visual and spatial processing)

The KF Case Study supports the Working Memory Model. KF suffered brain damage from a motorcycle accident that damaged his short-term memory. KF's impairment was mainly for verbal information - his memory for visual information was largely unaffected. This shows that there are separate STM components for visual information (VSS) and verbal information (phonological loop).

Working memory is supported by dual-task studies (Baddeley and Hitch, 1976).

The working memory model does not over emphasize the importance of rehearsal for STM retention, in contrast to the multi-store model.

Weaknesses

Lieberman (1980) criticizes the working memory model as the visuospatial sketchpad (VSS) implies that all spatial information was first visual (they are linked).

However, Lieberman points out that blind people have excellent spatial awareness, although they have never had any visual information. Lieberman argues that the VSS should be separated into two different components: one for visual information and one for spatial.

There is little direct evidence for how the central executive works and what it does. The capacity of the central executive has never been measured.

Working memory only involves STM, so it is not a comprehensive model of memory (as it does not include SM or LTM).

The working memory model does not explain changes in processing ability that occur as the result of practice or time.

References

Atkinson, R. C., & Shiffrin, R. M. (1968). Chapter: Human memory: A proposed system and its control processes. In Spence, K. W., & Spence, J. T. The psychology of learning and motivation (Volume 2). New York: Academic Press. pp. 89-195.

Baddeley, A. D. (1986). Working memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Baddeley, A. D. (2000). The episodic buffer: A new component of working memory? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, (11): 417-423.

Baddeley, A. D., & Hitch, G. (1974). Working memory. In G.H. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation: Advances in research and theory (Vol. 8, pp. 47-89). New York: Academic Press.

Baddeley, A. D., & Lieberman, K. (1980). Spatial working memory. ln R. Nickerson. Attention and Performance, VIII. Hillsdale, N): Erlbaum.

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Working Memory Model (Baddeley & Hitch) - Simply Psychology

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Atkinson's and Shiffrin's (1968) multi-store model was extremely successful in terms of the amount of research it generated. However, as a result of this

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EIPA offers two comprehensive tests to assess the skills and knowledge of educational interpreters. EIPA also has developed a screening tool for school systems to obtain general feedback about an interpreter's skill during the hiring process.

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The BA program focuses on face-to-face, interactive, community interpreting, and thus a dialogic approach to interpreting. Students apply for admission to the BA in Interpretation major as freshmen or after acceptance to Gallaudet University as a transfer student. The students may transfer their interpreting course(s) from another college if they have the grade of B or better, and approved by Gallaudet University Registrar Office. Refer to the department page for details on Requirements for Admission to a Major in Interpretation. If an applicant has at least 56 transfer credits from other college or university, GSR 110 will be waived.

All applicants must have a score of 3 or higher on the ASL Proficiency Interview (ASLPI) to be accepted into the program. They will then be eligible to enroll in INT 325 and higher levels of INT courses.

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B.A. in Interpretation | Gallaudet University

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The BA program focuses on face-to-face, interactive, community interpreting, and thus a dialogic approach to interpreting. Students apply for admission to

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Clarity Language Access provides interpreting services for both Deaf/Hard of Hearing & Visual/Spoken Language Speaking Individuals.