Simultaneous interpreting is a complex bilingual verbal activity that involves the auditory perception of an oral communication and the production of a coherent discourse. One of the cognitive functions underlying simultaneous interpreting is working memory. The aim of this work was to study the relationship between expertise, working memory capacity and articulatory suppression effect, and the ability to perform simultaneous interpreting. For this purpose, four working memory tasks and one simultaneous interpreting task were administered to thirty Spanish-speaking professional English interpreters. Results showed that simultaneous interpreting ability might be supported by the working memory´s capacity to store or process information, but also by the ability of the interpreter to cope with the articulatory suppression effect. We conclude that interpreters may have or develop resources to support the effect caused by articulatory suppression.

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Working memory refers to all the systems and processes linked to the maintenance and active retention of information relevant to the performance and execution of complex cognitive tasks. Individual diff erences in working memory have been shown to explain diff erences in other cognitive abilities, such as comprehension and reasoning. The purpose of the present work was to study the relationship between verbal working memory, verbal reasoning and text comprehension, for which a verbal working memory battery was designed and validated: The verbal Computerized Working Memory Battery (Batería Informatizada de Memoria de Trabajo Verbal [BIMeT-V]). Results showed that the tests administered presented a very good reliability due to internal consistency and, in terms of validity, two latent factors saturated the tests: one of storage and one of storage and concurrent processing of verbal information. Likewise, verbal reasoning skills and the ability to comprehend expository texts are supported by working memory's concurrent storage and processing of verbal information, and to a lesser extent, or with a lesser role, the verbal information storage component.

Successful text comprehension results in a coherent mental model of the situation being described. To achieve this, the reader has to infer certain information by connecting parts of the text to their prior knowledge. An important construct involved in this process is vocabulary knowledge, usually divided into breadth and depth. We conducted a meta-analysis on 23 studies, and explored the fit of five different models to establish an effect size of both dimensions of vocabulary on inference making, as well as its developmental trajectory in children aged 3-12. We found a significant and moderate effect of vocabulary knowledge of both modalities. Vocabulary type was not a significant moderator, but age was, meaning that there was a similar effect for both breadth and depth and that the strength of the correlations decreased with age. Heterogeneity was high overall, meaning that more moderators should be assessed in future studies.

Researchers have focused on identifying the mechanisms involved in subitizing and its differences with estimation. Some suggest that subitizing relies on a visual indexing system in charge of the simultaneous individuation of objects that is also used by visuospatial working memory (VSWM). In adults, studies found associations between subitizing and VSWM, in the absence of correlation between VSWM and estimation. The present study analyzed the performance of 120 4 and 6-year-old children in three tasks: dot enumeration to measure subitizing capacity, quantity discrimination for estimation, and Corsi Block-tapping task for VSWM. In the enumeration task RTs (F(9, 1062)=720.59, MSE=734394, p<.001, η2=.86) and errors (F(9, 1062)=42.15, MSE=.194, p<.001, η2=.26.) increased with the array, but this growth was statistically significant only from 4 dots onward. Each subject's subitizing range was estimated by fitting RTs with a sigmoid function of number of dots and obtaining the bend point of the curve. Data fit (age 4: R 2 = .88; SD = .08; age 6: R 2 = .91, SD = .08) showed a mean subitizing range of 2.79 (SD = .66) for 4 year-olds and of 3.11 (SD = .64) for 6 year-olds. Subitizing ranges and average RTs showed low association with storage (r = .274; p < .05; r = -.398; p < .001) and average RTs with concurrent processing (r = -.412; p < .001) in VSWM. Subitizing range and speed showed no association with estimation speed and a poor association with accuracy (r = .234, p < .01; r = -.398, p < .001), which suggests independent systems for small and large quantities. Subitizing and estimation measures correlated with VSWM (p < .01), which suggests that both processes may require VSWM resources.

Reading comprehension is a fundamental resource for educational and social development. It is a skill that brings into play a diverse and complex set of processes and cognitive functions based on building a mental representation of a given text. We set out to study how different domain-general and linguistic abilities explain text comprehension in a population of secondary school students with low educational opportunities. The sample consisted of 45 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 15 from two secondary schools in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Each participant was evaluated both in-group and individually for three sessions during school hours. A text comprehension screening test and a battery of tasks that measure different underlying cognitive processes were administered. Using multiple linear regression, we found that vocabulary, non-word reading, and verbal inhibition are the skills that best explain reading comprehension skills. Understanding how much different domain-general and linguistic subprocesses are associated with text comprehension is key to designing effective interventions that are also grounded in theory.

Este trabajo fue realizado en el marco del proyecto UBACyT 2016 N° 20020150200041BA, otorgado al primer autor del trabajo. En honor a la Dra. Irene Injoque-Ricle, gran compañera de trabajo y amiga.