KeTra

Cognitive aspects of translation and post-editing: empirical investigations 

Erik Angelone, Isabel Lacruz and Greg Shreve

KENT STATE UNIVERSITY

KeTra’s Three Periods

Early: 2007-2009

Recent: 2010-2013

Future: 2013-onwards

Early period (2007-2009)

Erik Angelone & Greg Shreve

Observational studies using Think Aloud Protocols and Screen Recordings

Two main projects

Uncertainty Management and Problem Solving in Translation

Questions investigated:

1. When, where, and how are problem solving bundles employed in managing uncertainty while translating?

2. How do the degree and contour of metacognitive activity associated with the bundles vary between professional and non-professional translators?

3. In what situations are the metacognitive activities associated with uncertainty management accounted for by TAPs, and in what situations are they not?

Main Findings

The professionals engaged in sequential, uninterrupted problem recognition - solution proposal - solution evaluation bundling to a greater extent than the students.

Problem-Solving Strategies and Error Mitigation in Translation

Questions investigated:

1. What impact does metacognitive bundling have on overall translation quality, as indicated by the type and frequency of errors in the target text?

2. Are certain forms of uncertainty management behavior more conducive than others to limiting translation errors?

3. What is the correlation between the textual level of overall uncertainty management and the textual level of translation errors?

4. Do apparent process-oriented expertise effects in uncertainty management behavior result in product-oriented expertise effects, i.e., improved translation quality?

Main Findings

Metacognitive bundling (uninterrupted problem recognition - solution proposal - solution evaluation sequences) resulted in fewer overall errors and fewer errors of each textual level type.

Recent Period (2010-2013)

Erik Angelone, Isabel Lacruz, Greg Shreve

Experimental studies using eye-tracking, key-logging, and reaction time methodologies

Cognitive Effort, Syntactic Disruption, and Visual Interference in a Sight Translation

Task

Questions investigated:

1. Does syntactic complexity of the source text affect sight translation performance?

2. Does syntactic complexity of the source text affect written translation?

3. Is sight translation more effortful than bilingual reading?

Methodologies

Eye-tracking

Keystroke logging

One authentic version and one modified version of each text

11 translators took part in these experiments

Main Findings

Syntactic complexity affected sight translation: sight translation was more effortful in the syntactically complex texts than in the non-complex texts

Syntactic complexity did not affect written translation

Sight translation was more effortful than bilingual reading

Sight Translation and Speech Disfluency: Performance Analysis as a Window to Cognitive Translation

Processes

Questions investigated:

1. Is there a relationship between oral disfluency phenomena and effort indicators in eye-tracking metrics?

2. What types of linguistic problems result in disfluencies?

Main Findings

Promising methodology: Triangulation of eye-tracking data and disfluency data

There seems to be an association between speech disfluencies and cognitive effort in sight translation

Disfluencies signal production problems resulting from lexical, syntactic, and translation-strategic problems

Efficacy of Screen Recordings in the Other-Revision of Translations

Questions investigated:

1. Are screen recordings efficacious to assist other-revision?

2. Are screen recordings more efficacious than IPDR records in other-revision?

3. Is there a difference in efficacy depending on error type?

Methodologies

8 Spanish/English translators and 4 German/English translators

First session: Each participant translated one text using Screen Recordings and another one using IPDR

Second session: Each participant edited one text translated by another translator and had access to either the Screen Recordings or the IPDR

The dependent variable was proportion of errors mitigated in the edited texts

Errors were classified by type

Main Findings

Screen recordings were more effective than IPDR in mitigating errors in other-revision: The percentage of errors left in the edited text was significantly lower for SR than IPDR

This effect was significant for both German and Spanish translators

SR were more efficacious only in four of the six error categories

Overall Errors Mitigated by Process Protocol

IPDR log Screen recording0

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Percentage of Errors Mitigated by Error Type

Punctuation Spelling Lexis Syntax Style Mistranslation0

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IPDR logScreen recording

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Pauses and Cognitive Effort in Post-Editing

Questions investigated:

1. Do pause patterns in keystroke log reports indicate cognitive effort in post-editing? If so, can these patterns be quantified by metrics suitable for automatic analysis?

2. Can levels of cognitive effort in post-editing be detected through pause timing data generated from keystroke log reports?

3. Can levels of cognitive effort in post-editing be detected through word timing data generated from keystroke log reports?

4. Can levels of cognitive effort in post-editing be detected through pause count data generated from keystroke log reports?

Methodologies

Keystroke logging

Post-editing of English-Spanish and Spanish-English MT

Assessment of actual cognitive effort from actions detected, rather than by inferences made from objective assessments of cognitive demand

Two observational studies: one pilot study and one follow-up using three participants with different language and professional characteristics

Main Findings

Clusters of short pauses associated with high levels of cognitive effort

Average pause ratio (= average pause time/average word time) decreases as cognitive effort increases

Average pause time decreases as cognitive effort increases

Average time to process a word increases as cognitive effort increases

Pause to word ratio (= number of pauses/number of words) increases as cognitive effort increases

Future Directions

Experimental studies into the nature of cognitive effort in post-editing and translation

Comparison of editing performance and behavior of non-translator subject-matter-experts and professional non-subject-matter-expert translators

Comparisons of MT revisions and human translations

How is the mind of the translator different from that of the bilingual/monolingual language user? How are mental representations for language different for a translator?

Future Directions

Both experimental and observational studies using Eye-tracking in combination with keystroke logging Reaction time paradigms such as:

Lexical decision tasks Word translation tasks Translation verification tasks both for words and for

sentences Paper and pencil tasks such multiple choice tests Screen Recordings Dual task paradigms