The personal side of cognitive effort: Effects of need for cognition and text readability in translation

Abstract This study investigates whether the Need for Cognition (NFC), an individual’s inclination to engage in mentally challenging tasks, predicts cognitive effort in translation and moderates how effort scales with text readability. Twenty-one native Arabic-speaking translators completed the 18-item NFC scale and translated six English texts of varying readability; eight eye-tracking and keylogging indicators captured their effort. Robust linear mixed-effects models showed limited direct effects of NFC, with marginal positive associations with character insertions and source-text reading time. NFC played a clearer role as a moderator. On the second-hardest-to-read text, high-NFC translators made more deletions and insertions and had longer production times than low-NFC peers. On the hardest-to-read text, high-NFC translators spent longer reading the source text. These findings suggest that translation process research accounts of effort should incorporate stable motivational dispositions alongside source-text demands. Given the modest sample, the findings are exploratory and require replication.