Cognitive load and processing in sight interpreting/translation: indicators and perspectives

Eyetracking-enabled empirical research in sight interpreting/translation (SiT) has thrived with a main focus on examining cognitive load in different research designs, including intrinsic task-related variables at lexical, semantic, syntactic, and discourse level and operator’s expertise and training experience. Along with the emerging studies, indicators measuring cognitive load in SiT prosper. While earlier studies tend to settle on task-based analysis using a single type of data, such as fixation duration/count, recent studies started to capitalize on the benefits of finer-grained indicators and data triangulation to probe into the dynamic process of SiT. This paper provides a structured overview of cognitive SiT studies, drawing on the discussion and comparison of selected studies to shed light on popular research topics, pros and cons of existing indicators, how indicators can be used jointly to provide nuanced insights, and point out future research endeavors that offer great potential.