How does interpreting training affect the executive function of switching? A longitudinal EEG-study of task switching

Abstract How experience-dependent plasticity can lead to structural and functional brain changes has long been examined in cognitive studies, leading neurolinguistics to investigate how brain structure and functionality are affected by training and controlling multiple languages in a similar manner. Overlapping networks of language control and domain-general executive functions are implicated in this process of managing elevated control demands in coordinating more than one language. Simultaneous interpreting (SI), as a cognitively extremely taxing way of controlling languages, holds a special status. SI involves high processing demands and frequent switching between languages under time pressure. Therefore, SI offers important insight on how task switching abilities may change through training language control in a professional setting. Within a longitudinal design using event-related potentials, this study examines how the executive function of switching progresses during interpreting training. Results show a progression of voltage in the P300 time window until Session 4, followed by a decrease that indicates an automation of attention switching and working memory updating. No significant effects were found within the N200 time-window, which only allows for observing a trend towards progression of N200 over time, suggesting the development and subsequent automation of inhibitory control aspects of switching induced by interpreting training.