Delayed auditory feedback in polyglot simultaneous interpreters.

Twelve polyglot students of simultaneous interpretation and 12 controls (students of the faculty of Medicine) were submitted to a task of verbal fluency under amplified normal auditory feedback (NAF) and under three delayed auditory feedback (DAF) conditions with three different delay intervals (150, 200, and 250 msec). The control group showed a significant reduction in verbal fluency and a significant increase in the number of mistakes in all three DAF conditions. The interpreters' group, however, did not show any significant speech disruption neither in the subjects' mother tongue (L1) nor in their second language (L2) across all DAF conditions.

Effects of speaking speed on cerebral lateralization of speech assessed by a dual-task interference paradigm.

Cerebral asymmetry for speech was assessed by means of a verbal-manual interference paradigm in a sample of 16 right-handed men at two different speaking rates. Normal speech rate disrupted the right hand significantly more than the left, whereas increased speech rate showed no differences between right and left hands during verbal-manual interference tasks. This result suggests a role of speaking speed in modifying cerebral motor functions related to speech production.

Audio-phonological and neuropsychological aspects of simultaneous interpretation. Role of auditory shadowing.

Two groups of female interpreter students (3rd year and 4th year) at the School for Interpreters and Translators of the University of Trieste (SIT) underwent a paradigm of complex shadowing. All subjects were polyglots, with Italian as first language (L1) and German, learned after age 10, as second language (L2). In the first part of the experiment, they were asked to listen to and immediately repeat 60 lists of 50 words each in Italian passed through earphones to the right ear (RE) and the same number of words to the left ear (LE).