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Previous evidence shows that words with implicit spatial meaning or metaphorical spatial associations are perceptually simulated and can guide attention to associated locations (e.g., bird—upward location). In turn, simulated representations interfere with visual perception at an associated location. The present study investigates the effect of spatial associations on short-term verbal recognition memory to disambiguate between modal and amodal accounts of spatial interference effects across two experiments. Participants in both experiments encoded words presented in congruent and incongruent locations. Congruent and incongruent locations were based on an independent norming task. In Experiment 1, an auditorily presented word probed participants’ memory as they were visually cued to either the original location of the probe word or a diagonal location at retrieval. In Experiment 2, there was no cue at retrieval but a neutral encoding condition in which words normed to central locations were shown. Results show that spatial associations affected memory performance although spatial information was neither relevant nor necessary for successful retrieval: Words in Experiment 1 were retrieved more accurately when there was a visual cue in the congruent location at retrieval but only if they were encoded in a non-canonical position. A visual cue in the congruent location slowed down memory performance when retrieving highly imageable words. With no cue at retrieval (Experiment 2), participants were better at remembering spatially congruent words as opposed to neutral words. Results provide evidence in support of sensorimotor simulation in verbal memory and a perceptual competition account of spatial interference effect.

[THE REVISED AND PEER-REVIEWED VERSION OF THIS WORK HAS BEEN PUBLISHED IN JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY ON 25 MAY 2023: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/CR2QBWUTGWGH8JAU6MMF/full?target=10.1080/20445911.2023.2216917. PLEASE DO NOT CITE OR COPY THIS VERSION]. Mental imagery plays a critical role in memory. However, the link between the different types and components of imagery and efficiency in tasks involving recall is not clear as the direction of the effect (facilitation/deterioration) usually depends on the task in question. We investigate the role of visual and auditory mental imagery in consecutive interpreting, an underrepresented yet product-oriented and ecologically valid activity with high individual variability due to exacting memory and cognitive control demands. Mental imagery of 38 translation-interpreting undergraduates was measured on four self-reported scales and a mental rotation test with the vividness, control, and preference components. Participants were then asked to consecutively interpret 10 speeches from English into Turkish. Mixed-effects models revealed that only control of visual mental imagery measured with Gordon’s Test of Visual Imagery Control predicts consecutive interpreting performance. Results were discussed as per the nature of imagery and the cognitive architecture of consecutive interpreting.

Linguistic synesthesia (or synesthetic/intrafield/crossmodal metaphor) refers to crossmodal instances in which expressions in different sensory modalities are combined as in the case of sweet (tast...

The use of translation for language teaching and assessment, by and large, has been abandoned with the adoption of audio-lingual and communicative approaches in language teaching. As a result, nowadays translation items are not commonly used for measuring language proficiency in international language proficiency tests (e. g. TOEFL, IELTS). However, there are several countries that still use translation items in their national language proficiency tests (e. g. Turkey, Japan, China, Romania among others). The present study aims to examine whether or not multiple-choice translation items are an appropriate tool for measuring proficiency in English. To this end, the perceived level of difficulty and validity of multiple-choice translation items in the National English Proficiency Test (YDS) in Turkey were examined. The findings revealed that the participants did significantly better on the translation items than on the rest of the test items. They also perceived the translation items as the easiest among all the rest items in YDS. Moreover, while YDS as a whole indicated a strong validity based on correlation with TOEFL PBT Reading Sample Test, the translation items indicated moderate validity. Importantly, there was a significant difference between the two correlations. These findings suggest that multiple-choice translation items are likely to lower the overall validity of YDS tests, inflate the scores of test-takers and, thus, might be considered as problematic for the quality of the tests.

[THE REVISED AND PEER-REVIEWED VERSION OF THIS WORK HAS BEEN PUBLISHED IN METAPHOR AND SYMBOL ON 03 OCTOBER 2021: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10926488.2021.1921557. PLEASE DO NOT CITE OR COPY THIS VERSION] Linguistic synaesthesia (i.e., synaesthetic metaphor, intrafield metaphor or cross-modal metaphor) refers to instances in which expressions in different sensory modalities are combined as in the case of sweet (taste) melody (sound). Ullmann (1957) and later, Williams (1976) were first to show that synaesthetic transfers seem to follow a potentially universal pattern that goes from the lower (i.e., touch, taste and smell) to higher senses (i.e., hearing and sight) but not the other way around (e.g., melodious sweetness) Studies across languages, cultures, domains, and text types presented mixed results as to the universality claim of cross-modal mappings in linguistic synaesthesia (e.g., Jo, 2019; Strik Lievers, 2015; Zhao et al., 2019). To extend results to an underrepresented language and thus, to test the universality of the directionality principle, 5699 cases of linguistic synaesthesia in written and spoken Turkish were investigated using a general-purpose, large corpus. Results show that except for the transfers from smell to hearing which is unidirectional, synaesthetic transfers in Turkish do not comply with the directionality principle in the strictest sense. Although most transfers that follow the canonical direction were also significantly more frequent, there were instances of “backward transfers”. Further, two of the backward transfers (i.e., from smell to touch and from taste to touch) were significantly more frequent than their canonical counterparts (i.e., from touch to smell and from touch to taste). Results are compared against synaesthesia in other languages and discussed in the framework of linguistic universals and embodied cognition. Supplemental materials: https://osf.io/2unvy

People revisit spatial locations of visually encoded information when they are asked to retrieve that information, even when the visual image is no longer present. Such "looking at nothing" during retrieval is likely modulated by memory load (i.e., mental effort to maintain and reconstruct information) and the strength of mental representations. We investigated whether words that are more difficult to remember also lead to more looks to relevant, blank locations. Participants were presented four nouns on a two by two grid. A number of lexico-semantic variables were controlled to form high-difficulty and low-difficulty noun sets. Results reveal more frequent looks to blank locations during retrieval of high-difficulty nouns compared to low-difficulty ones. Mixed-effects modelling demonstrates that imagery-related semantic factors (imageability and concreteness) predict looking at nothing during retrieval. Results provide the first direct evidence that looking at nothing is modulated by word difficulty and in particular, word imageability. Overall, the research provides substantial support to the integrated memory account for linguistic stimuli and looking at nothing as a form of mental imagery.

Dağıtık biliş, bilişsel görevlerin tek bir biyolojik organizmanın kafatası ile sınırlı zihninde gerçekleştirilmesi yerine, bilişin bireysel ve izole zihinden taşarak çevredeki biyolojik/biyolojik olmayan yapılara dağılması/yayılması şeklinde özetlenebilecek bir zihin yaklaşımıdır. Dağıtık biliş, bilgi-işlemsel zihin kuramına tepki olarak ortaya çıkmış; bellek ve dil gibi temel bilişsel yetileri yeniden değerlendirmek için kullanılmış; bilişsel yük boşaltma, geçişken bellek ve tekno-sosyal sistem gibi çeşitli kavramların ortaya çıkmasına öncülük etmiştir. Çeviribilim kapsamında yazılı çeviri, bilgisayar-destekli çeviri, teknik iletişim ve çeviri eğitimi bağlamlarında ele alınan bu araştırma programının, sözlü, özellikle de konferans ortamındaki profesyonel andaş çeviri sürecini daha iyi anlamak ve araştırmak için potansiyel taşıdığı düşünülmektedir. Dağıtık biliş ve dağıtık bilişle kavramsal düzeyde aynı şemsiye altında yer alan yayılmış zihin ve gömülü-bedenlenmiş biliş tezleri, 1990’lardan bu yana zihin felsefesi, bilişsel bilimler ve bilişsel psikoloji içinde varlığını sürdürmektedir. Ancak alan yazınında andaş çeviriyi bu çerçevede sistematik olarak inceleyen bir çalışma mevcut değildir. Bu boşluğu gidermeyi amaçlayan bu kuramsal çalışmada, 1960’lardan bu yana bilgi-işlemsel zihin kuramı ve bilgi işleme yaklaşımı temelinde ve çoğu kez akış şemaları ile modellenen andaş çeviri, dağıtık biliş kapsamında yeniden ele alınmış ve buna uygun bir yaklaşım geliştirilmiştir. Gelecekteki çalışmaların bu yaklaşımı test edecek ve önceki modellerle karşılaştıracak deneysel veriler sunması büyük önem taşımaktadır., Distributed cognition is a cognitive approach that can be summarised as the distribution/extension of cognition onto the biological/nonbiological artefacts in the environment by leaking from the individual and isolated mind rather than cognitive tasks being executed in a mind limited to the skull of a single biological agent. Distributed cognition emerged as a reaction against the computational theory of mind. It has been employed as a framework to re-evaluate fundamental cognitive faculties such as memory and language and has introduced various concepts such as cognitive offloading, transactive memory and techno-social system. This research programme has been applied to translation, computer-assisted translation, technical communication and translation pedagogy within translation studies. It is assumed that distributed cognition has the potential for better comprehending and investigating interpreting, in particular, professional simultaneous interpreting in the conference venue. Distributed cognition has existed within the fields of philosophy of mind, cognitive science and cognitive psychology since the 1990s along with the extended mind and grounded-embodied cognition theses, which are under the same conceptual umbrella with distributed cognition. That said, simultaneous interpreting has yet to be systematically investigated through the lens of distributed cognition. Rather, the process of simultaneous interpreting has been modelled on the basis of the computational theory of mind and information-processing approach using flowcharts since the 1960s. The present study aims to fulfil the gap in the literature by re-evaluating simultaneous interpreting in the framework of distributed cognition and developing an apt approach. It is critical that future studies provide experimental data to test this approach and to compare it with previous models.