The Behavioral Dynamics of Positive Emotions and Flow Experience in the Translation Process

The role of emotions in the translation and interpreting process has gained increasing attention in recent years. Research shows that emotional factors—from textual valence and affective elements at the workplace to translators’ emotional states—significantly affect translators’ cognitive processes, behaviours, and overall performance (e.g., Korpal & Jasielska, 2019; Lehr & Hvelplund, 2020; Bednárová-Gibová, 2022). Despite the progress made so far, the interactive impact of positive emotions and flow, a psychological state of complete immersion in an activity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975) observed in various cognitive tasks, including translation
(Mirlohi et al., 2011), remains underexplored. This study explores the relationships among positive emotions, flow experiences, and translators’ cognitive and behavioural responses using a mixed-method approach. Data were collected through self-reported scales for positive emotions and flow, as well as eye-tracking methods to capture behavioural indicators during the translation process. The results indicate that although positive emotions did not significantly affect overall flow scores, they correlated with specific flow dimensions and interacted with flow to promote translation efficiency and cognitive economy. Translators primed with positive emotions demonstrated larger mean saccade amplitude and fewer ST-TT transitions,
indicating more efficient information intake and code-switching. They also exhibited shorter mean fixation durations that signaled reduced cognitive effort and a higher ST-TT fixation duration ratio, reflecting more balanced attention allocation patterns. Furthermore, results suggest a broaden-and-build effect: flow-generated positive experiences potentially balanced translators’ attention allocation and encouraged parallel processing in the later phase of the experiment. This study contributes insights to cognitive translation research by revealing how positive emotions and flow synergize to optimize translation processes. Practically, it highlights the value of cultivating positive emotions and flow experiences to improve both efficiency and well-being in translation practice.