Pauses, silences, and cognitive control: psycholinguistic markers of speech planning in interpreter training

Cognitive control stands at the heart of goal-directed behavior. Braver's Dual Mechanisms of Control framework distinguishes between proactive and reactive control, yet its applicability in complex speech production and whether cognitive control strategies can be trained remain underexplored. Consecutive interpreting, as an extreme cognitive control task, provides a unique window for examining these questions. This study investigated whether paralinguistic cognitive training could facilitate a shift from reactive to proactive control in interpreters, while testing the validity of paralinguistic features as indicators of cognitive control strategies. A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 60 undergraduate interpreting students randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group (30 participants each). The experimental group received paralinguistic cognitive training beyond conventional training, whereas the control group underwent standard instruction only. Data were collected at pre-test (Week 1) and post-test (Week 13), with paralinguistic features annotated using ELAN software. Mixed-design analysis of variance examined group by time interaction effects. The experimental group demonstrated significant improvements: pause frequency dropped by 63%, lengthening frequency fell to zero in the English-to-Chinese direction, and self-repair frequency declined by 28%. The control group exhibited intensified reactive control characteristics-self-repair frequency rose by 35% and pause duration extended by 25%. Interaction effects revealed that self-repair frequency showed the most pronounced between-group divergence with large effect sizes, displaying a classic scissor-pattern differentiation. This study provides empirical support for applying Braver's Dual Mechanisms of Cognitive Control framework to speech production, confirming that cognitive control strategies can be trained to shift from reactive toward proactive modes. These findings extend the framework's application boundary while offering new evidence for intervention research on enhancing cognitive control through metacognitive training.