Eye-Tracking in Interpreting Studies: A Review of Four Decades of Empirical Studies

Ting Hu; Xinyu Wang; Haiming Xu

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.872247

Eye-Tracking in Interpreting Studies: A Review of Four Decades of Empirical Studies

Front Psychol. 2022 Jun 27:13:872247. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.872247. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Ting Hu^{1

2}, Xinyu Wang², Haiming Xu¹

Affiliations

¹ School of English Studies, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China.
² Zhejiang Conservatory of Music, Hangzhou, China.

Abstract

It has been four decades since eye-tracking was first used in interpreting studies, and recent years has witnessed a growing interest in the application of this method, which holds great potential for offering a look into the "black box" of interpreting processing. However, little attention has been paid to comprehensively illustrating what has been done, what can be done, and what needs to be done with this method in this discipline. With this in view, this paper sets out to understand contributions of previous studies-key themes discussed, eye-tracking measures used, their limitations and implications, and future directions. To this end, we conduct a review of a total of 26 empirical papers from peer-reviewed journals within a time span of 4 decades ranging from 1981 to 2021. This study, as the first attempt of its kind at a comprehensive review on using eye-tracking in interpreting studies, should have implications for researchers, educators, and practitioners.

Keywords: empirical; eye movements; eye-tracking; interpreting studies; review.

Publication types

Review