Insane in the membrane

Human cognition is terribly unique and idiosyncratic and yet more understood now than every before. Understanding what the brain does during an interpreting event leads to better equivalent work product. Arguably the greatest challenge to equivalency in an interpretation event is the ability to control the data shared during the event: who did what to whom? What was the number? Did s/he just spell ‘car’ or ‘cat’?

Here are some bullet points/learning outcomes of which we might want to be aware:

• How do I learn? Am I more of a verbal, auditory, or kinesthetic learner? How does that impact my ability to produce a real-time spoken language interpretation?
• Or, where are my learning strengths? How do multiple intelligences help me understand my abilities in producing interpretations?
• How do I deal with message ‘decay’? Why do I make miscues?
• How can I harness the power of cognitive load in producing a spoken language interpretation?

Readings/Discussions

How do I learn?

VARK Questionnaire

Take this learning preferences style assessment to see where your learning tendencies might be focused. Required

Related: Try the Big Five personality quiz or even try the Myers-Briggs personality exam or for more detailed information on your learning and psychological preferences. The goal here is not to create a diagnosis, but to identify how you personally process (or dual process) information in an interpreting event.

Multiple intelligences

Howard Gardner proposed the concept of ‘multiple intelligences’ to challenge the concept of IQs; various intelligences (at least eight of them) indicate where various types of information are processed and comprehended. Gardner contrasts multiple intelligences against learning styles, explaining them as “abilities,” rather than approaches to tasks. For a little more insight into your multiple intelligences, what does an intelligences assessment look like for you? Recommended

Model human processor (Card, Moran, & Newell, 1983)

What is the brain doing when it’s processing and/or looking at information? Required

The science of automating and perfecting any skill

Achieving automaticity is about making a newly learned skill a part of who you are, as opposed to just a thing you can do. Required

How to learn in two days what normally takes six months

Article reminds that process to learning skills and tasks is relatively straightforward (context-based learning): ‘learn’ a concept, practice/use it in a real-world scenario, get coaching and feedback, rinse and repeat.

Those incredible interpreters

Part I: Interpreting is one of the most difficult linguistic skills Required
Part II: How Those Incredible Interpreters Do It Required
Inside the Weird Brains of Real-Time Translators

How to never forget anything ever again: Spaced repetition

One way to remember things for a longer period of time. Money quote: “But short-term memory and long-term memory are actually two ends of a spectrum. Everything that ends up in long-term memory has to start off in your short-term memory. Each time you recall something, it moves a little further into your long-term memory….” Is this something that interpreters can use? Recommended

Quora: How does the human brain decide which memories to store?

Quora discussion/explanation about how information is actually stored and recalled; cf. some of our other discussions (on this page) about how this is accomplished. What is the application for sign language interpreting?

How memory works: 10 things most people get wrong

I’m not a huge fan of the ‘10 Things’ genre, but this is especially germane to our discussion.

Designing experience design

Tangential to interpreting, the field of user experience spends a great deal of effort in understanding how users cognitively and psychologically process presented information. This article discusses cognitive effort, schema/schemata, and gestalt principles as a way of taxonomizing information. Nerd alert, but helpful in seeing that interpreters aren’t the only ones doing this.

Related: How human memory works (tips for designers): interface designers leverage human memory triggers and tactics to create stories and memorable experiences. Interpreter ‘designers’ do the same thing.

Why we forget

Science shows our memory can easily be distorted and erased — but our forgetfulness also helps us survive.

Cognitive biases: Why we make irrational decisions

Less an article and more a list of other articles, this ‘article’ helps us reevaluate why we make bad — or inequivalent — decision in our interpreting work.

Anosognosia or The Dunning & Kruger Effect

Ever wonder why some people don’t see or think that they make errors? It’s because we don’t know what we don’t know. Here’s the paper/research. Beware the juice. PDF version. Recommended

Bonus points: Learning to understand the concept of solipsism, or the philosophical viewpoint that only my viewpoint exists in the world and that any knowledge (ability?) outside of one’s own mind is dubious. (How many times have you heard, “oh, that’s not the way you should sign that…”)

Do you suffer from decision fatigue?

2011 NYT article on the very real issue of defining the energy needed to make decisions and exercise self-control. What is the relationship to SL interpreting?

Brain Games and Training

Games, exercises, and training to improve brain health and performance. (First few games free, paid account required) Lumosity Memorado

Cognitive Load Theory

Cognitive Load Theory (CLT)

CLT has roots in work by instructional psychologists Miller (1956; concept of 7±2;) and Simon & Chase (1973; “chunking”) and is the subject of a large body of study by John Sweller (1988, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, et al) at the University of New South Wales. Sweller’s work primarily deals with the amount of information/cognition that is transmitted in instruction (SL interpreters as ‘instructors’ anyone?) but the findings are clearly germane to SL interpreters and their work. Required

Dual-coding theory

First discussed by Allan Paivio, dual-coding theory hypothesizes that visual and verbal information are processed in different areas of the brain and schemas for each are produced in different visual and verbal channels. What implications does this have for how SL interpreters create schema for information in each channel? Required

The Serial position effect

Why you remember the first and the last items of a list, but not the middle. What are the ramifications for sign language interpreters?

Muscle memory

Muscle memory is the concept of training behaviors (or literally, gross/fine motor skills) to be automatic; we perform tasks almost subconsciously and/or without purposely thinking because we’ve performed the task multiple times. There is an analog to this in the design of the user interfaces of our phones, iPods, etc. Does muscle memory also apply to SL interpreting? What skills (if any) can be made automatic and what skills (if any) must remain outside of automatcity? Additional reading in Karni & Meyer, et al (1998). Here’s a visual example of how a two-and-a-half year-old creates muscle memory with an iPad. Required

https://medium.com/oxford-university/the-amazing-phenomenon-of-muscle-memory-fb1cc4c4726

An introduction to efficiency in learning

This is Chapter 1 of Clark, R. C.; Nguyen, F; & Sweller, J. (2006). Efficiency in learning: evidence-based guidelines to manage cognitive load. (pp. 1–13) New York: John Wiley and Sons. This short chapter gives an introduction to CLT, explains a broad taxonomy of types of cognitive load (‘intrinsic’, ‘germane/relevant’, and ‘extraneous/irrelevant’), and gives an introduction to techniques in managing these kinds of load. (Read pp. 9–13.)

Improving traditional instruction: Cognitive load theory

This excerpt (pp. 603–605) from Wilson, Brent & Cole, Peggy (1996), Cognitive teaching models. In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.), Handbook of research for educational communications and technology (pp. 601-621). New York: MacMillan is a simplified explanation of CLT; how does this apply to SL interpreting work?