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The abilities and skills required for interpreting have been a topic of special interest ever since the very first scientific investigation into the professional occupation of conference interpreting by Jesus Sanz (1930). In the 1960s and 1970s, AIIC, the International Association of Conference Interpreters, made serious efforts to tackle this issue and come to a better understanding of the prerequisites for a career in professional interpreting (see Keiser 1978). Attempts to put the selection of candidates for interpreter training on a more scientific footing have been made since the 1980s, often drawing on insights from cognitive psychology (eg Moser-Mercer 1985). And yet, relatively little empirical research on aptitude for interpreting has been carried out to date, despite recurrent doubts over the reliability, validity and predictive power of tasks designed to test candidates for interpreter training programs (eg Dodds 1990). What …