Translators' Allocation of Cognitive Resources in Two Translation Directions: A Study Using Eye-Tracking and Keystroke Logging  
[PERSON]  
1 China-Africa Institute, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; [EMAIL_ADDRESS]  
[PERSON]  
2 Division of Literature and Languages, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4 LA, UK 2* 2  
contexts [3] (p. 898). Despite these advancements, a crucial question remains unanswered: does translation directionality influence the allocation of cognitive resources, and if so, how?  
While previous studies have utilized eye-tracking to examine cognitive load in written translation [1, 2, 3, 4], conference interpretation [2, 6], simultaneous interpretation [7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12], translation competence [5, 6], and translator training [8] between L1 and L2 translations [10], the findings remain inconsistent and often inconclusive. A key shortcoming in existing research is the limited attention given to the alignment--or lack thereof--between objective, data-driven indicators (such as those captured through eye-tracking and keystroke logging) and translators' introspective accounts of their own mental processes. This disconnect obscures a fuller understanding of how cognitive resources are allocated in real time and how translators perceive their own mental effort during the task.  
To address this gap, the present study adopts an integrative methodology combining eye-tracking and keystroke logging techniques to investigate cognitive resource distribution among novice translators working in both English-to-Chinese and Chinese-to-English directions. The research focuses on the role that translation direction plays in shaping mental effort and aims to examine how observed behavior aligns--or contrasts--with participants' self-assessments. Cognitive effort in this study is quantified using four core indicators, developed by [PERSON] [12]: Total Attentional Duration (TA duration), AU count, AU duration, and pupil dilation. These measures offer a multifaceted view of how translators attend to the source text (ST), produce the target text (TT), or engage in both actions simultaneously. We aim to test the following three primary hypotheses:  
1. Translators engage in overlapping processing of the source text (ST) and target texts (TT) in both translation directions.
2. Translators allocate more cognitive resources to TT processing than to ST processing or simultaneous (parallel) processing in both translation directions.
3. Translators may underestimate the cognitive resources devoted to first-language production during L2-L1 translation.  
To test these hypotheses, data were collected from 24 Chinese translator trainees and analyzed use Generalized Linear Models (GLMs) to assess the relationship between directionally and cognitive effort. By combining behavioral data with retrospective self-reflection, this research seeks to provide a more nuanced perspective on how cognitive processes function during translation. It aims to refine theoretical models and offer practical implications for translator training and assessment, especially in relation to translation directionality and the mental demands it entails.