ABSTRACT

The chapter aims to examine the possible interpreter advantage in emotional regulation. The Simon task (Experiment 1) and the digit switch task (Experiment 2) were used and the results showed that student interpreters performed more stably than matched non-interpreter bilinguals under different emotional conditions (high-approach-motivated vs. low-approach-motivated) when certain executive functions (inhibitory control and monitoring, but not cognitive flexibility) were required. The empirical patterns indicate that interpreting training can help interpreters resist emotional distractions in certain domain-general settings. The present study is an initial empirical effort that extends the interpreter advantage studies to the psycho-emotional dimension. The results suggest that interpreting training can be selectively beneficial to emotional regulation.