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Article published In: Interpreting
Vol. 28:1 (2026) ► pp.1–29

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Emotional content affects interpreters

Insights from psychophysiological, behavioral, and self-report measures

 | Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań
 | Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań
 | Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

This article was made Open Access under a CC BY 4.0 license through payment of an APC by or on behalf of the authors.

Published online: 28 November 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/intp.00125.kor
Abstract
There has been a growing interest recently in the psychophysiological correlates of interpreting affect-laden content. Such an examination could provide crucial insights into affective language processing in the highly cognitively taxing task of interpreting. We tested how professional interpreters process affect-laden and neutral content when interpreting. Using a multi-method approach, we employed psychophysiological measures (electrodermal activity and heart rate), response times and a self-report tool to study their emotional reactivity to negative, neutral and positive sentences. These were interpreted both from the participants’ native language (L1; Polish) into their foreign language (L2; English) and in the opposite direction. We found more pronounced physiological arousal and self-reported emotional states in response to affect-laden content compared to neutral sentences, which was observed in both interpreting directions. Behavioral results (response-time data) also supported these findings, showing longer processing times for affect-laden sentences than for neutral ones. The outcomes offer a novel contribution to the cognitive and affective dimensions of interpreting.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methods
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Materials
    • 2.4Procedure
    • 2.5Psychophysiological data recording
    • 2.6Self-report and response-time data analysis
    • 2.7Psychophysiological data analysis
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Self-report data (SUPIN S30)
    • 3.2Response-time data
      • 3.2.1Preparation time
      • 3.2.2Production time
    • 3.3Electrodermal activity
      • 3.3.1Skin Conductance Response (SCR) count
      • 3.3.2Skin Conductance Response (SCR) amplitude
      • 3.3.3Mean Skin Conductance Level (SCL)
      • 3.3.4Skin Conductance Level (SCL) range
    • 3.4Heart rate (HR)
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Data availability
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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