Assessing the scope of expertise-driven advantages in bilinguals: A comparison of interpreters and translators

The “bilingual advantage hypothesis” posits that the need for language control during bilingual processing enhances executive functioning. However, inconsistent results have questioned the existence of this phenomenon. Such mixed findings may reflect the diverse contexts under which language tasks are performed. Against this background, a promising approach is to compare specific bilingual populations differing in the cognitive demands they face during language processing. Simultaneous interpreting exerts high demands on an interpreter’s executive functions. We aim to answer three questions 1) do the demands of interpreting lead to significant cognitive enhancements?; 2) if yes, to what extent is such an advantage specific to simultaneous interpreting or general to other forms of inter-lingual reformulation?; and 3) when does the advantage, if it exists, emerge during an interpreter’s training or experience? through a longitudinal study where student interpreters are compared with student translators and bilingual students without training in interpreting and translation.