Evidence of meeting #34 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was interpreters.
A video is available from Parliament.
12:05 p.m.
Dr. Darren Tse Otolaryngologist and Neuro-Otologist, Assistant Professor, Department of Otolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Thank you, Madam Chair and honourable members, for your invitation to appear today as part of the study on hybrid proceedings.
As mentioned, I'm an otolaryngologist and neuro-otologist at the Ottawa Hospital, and assistant professor at the university. My clinical and research foci are mainly on the inner ear, encompassing everything from hearing disorders to dizziness and balance disorders. I've been in practice for almost 10 years.
Dr. Fournier stole some of my thunder. You'll see on the list of references that I posted for you guys that his work with the AIIC is one of the references. It's the report from last year.
Over the past two years, there's been a widespread adoption of virtual meetings in all fields of life. There have been some publications and media entries specifically about parliamentary interpreters suffering from something called acoustic shock injury.
ASI has not been specifically defined, but it is described as a phenomenon occurring in people who do jobs requiring prolonged periods of concentrated hearing and attention, usually through headsets, and who can be subjected to sudden and unexpected loud noise spikes. Examples of these occupations include air traffic control workers, military radio and communication operators and call centre operators, all of which I have experience working with. Very similar symptoms occur in anybody exposed to prolonged periods of noise exposure—such as first responders, police and industrial workers—and/or intense but short-duration noise spikes, such as people using chainsaws, power tools and firearms.
In my practice, I simply referred to these patients as having noise damage or acoustic trauma, and did not necessarily label them in the past as having ASI. Most likely, this is a case of medical professionals in different fields labelling the same problem with different names.
Examples of these loud noise spikes include feedback loops, sudden changes in volume, acoustic pops, tapping on the microphone and other things happening around the speaker and the microphone. I'm sure we've all experienced this over the last few years. Many of us have likely encountered these sounds many times before.
Symptoms of ASI can range from mild to severe and from temporary to chronic. They can include tinnitus, which is an intrusive or ringing noise in the ear; hyperacusis, which is sensitivity to noise; oral fullness, which is the feeling of plugging or pressure in the ear, like when you are on an airplane; and ear pain. More severe and chronic cases can have symptoms like headaches, nausea, dizziness and balance dysfunction. It's recognized that ASI can also cause psychological distress, including sleep disorders, anxiety and depressive symptoms.
From what I've read in the media, there currently seems to be a not insignificant portion of parliamentary interpreters who are suffering from or who are off work due to symptoms of ASI right now.
ASI was first coined, from what I can tell, in Australia in the early 2000s by audiologists. There was no real, clear publication regarding ASI until Myriam Westcott published in 2006. There is a large body of evidence on noise damage and its resulting short- and long-term symptoms. There's long-standing legislation surrounding at-work exposure to loud noise levels at both the federal and provincial levels. There are well-established mechanisms of compensation for on-the-job sufferers of noise injury through agencies like the WSIB.
Despite all of this, there has not been much research on ASI specifically, especially in the literature outside of audiology. Most recently, as I mentioned, Dr. Philippe Fournier published a project that highlighted the high prevalence of ASI in interpreting staff around the world. In fact, Canada ranked 13th out of 81 countries surveyed in the number of interpreters currently suffering with ASI, which is not great. This publication includes a call to action, steps for interpreting staff to safeguard against ASI and a call for further research.
To that end, I would recommend that the government send afflicted interpreters for full audiological, otological and psychological assessment and management—
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
Thank you. We look forward to hearing more from you during the question and answer round.
Now, we'll go to Professor Seeber. Welcome.
12:10 p.m.
Kilian G. Seeber Professor, University of Geneva, As an Individual
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to this meeting and giving me the opportunity to speak about hybrid proceedings.
Unfortunately, I cannot be with you, but believe me, I am in a rather good position to6 understand the additional workload that my virtual presence creates, especially for the interpreters. It is that additional workload that I would like to talk to you about today.
My name is Kilian Seeber. I am an associate professor at the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Geneva. I have spent the last 15 years, give or take, trying to better understand the construct of cognitive load, especially cognitive load as it relates to simultaneous conference interpreting.
We do know that the human brain has an extraordinary capacity when it comes to the storage of long-term information, to the tune of roughly seven billion gigabytes, but when it comes to short-term storage, and particularly when it comes attention or cognitive control, it is unfortunately rather limited. Our working memory, which we believe to be the system that is responsible for short-term storage and manipulation of information, is finite.
This is where three important notions come in that I would like to cover before I tell you about the empirical studies that we have just concluded: cognitive capacity, being the processing resources that can be deployed by the system; cognitive load, being the processing demands that are imposed on the system; and cognitive effort, being the processing capacity that's actually allocated to a task. When the imposed load exceeds capacity, or when the invested effort doesn't meet task demands, the process will slow down and eventually break down. Interestingly, in cognitive terms, simultaneous interpretive training, rather than focusing on language training, aims at acquiring the skills required to strategically allocate resources to accommodate this increased task load.
As I was saying before, we very recently carried out some studies at the University of Geneva where we looked into the relationship between deteriorated sound and cognitive load in simultaneous interpreters.
In the first study, we observed interpreters and their psychophysiological response in the field to what I would call “frequently occurring salient triggers”, or events that you'll run into time and again when you have online meetings or hybrid meetings such as this one. Interpreters show significant psychophysiological responses. Their body responds to instances of bad sound, including echos, distortions, pops, clicks or background noises.
In the second study, we measured the interpreters’ psychophysiological response to deteriorated sound. We artificially deteriorated the sound by reducing the frequency response. We found that interpreters showed significant cognitive and emotional response during low-quality sound. There was a significant increase in the subjective load they perceived during low-quality sound. The increased load sets in as early as after the first 10 minutes on task. The experiment was designed in a way where they would be on task for 10 minutes, off for 15 and on for 10, in an iteration of four times. Interpretation quality, importantly, decreased significantly with low-quality sound. Of the three parameters analyzed, it was not style, not presentation, but content that suffered significantly.
In the third study, we then measured cognitive load as it changes with artificially deteriorated sound with, again, reduced frequency response. We found that cognitive load as measured with pupil dilation—again, psychophysiologically—didn't significantly change when interpreters just had to listen to that sound, but the cognitive load did significantly increase when they interpreted. Taken together—
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
Thank you for those introductory comments, Professor. We look forward to hearing more from you during the question and answer round.
Members, we will begin our six-minute round with Mr. Calkins, followed by Mr. Fergus.
Go ahead, Mr. Calkins.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Dr. Tse, would you like to finish your thoughts, please?
12:15 p.m.
Otolaryngologist and Neuro-Otologist, Assistant Professor, Department of Otolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Yes. Sorry, I timed myself, but I guess I spoke a bit more slowly in the room.
As I mentioned, much research needs to be done, especially in this setting of interpreters. As I mentioned, I've treated patients in other fields who suffer with similar symptoms.
I was just talking to one of the interpreters outside, before I came in. I've never met a single interpreter, in 10 years of work, and neither have any of my colleagues who are also ear specialists at the hospital. It's a little bit interesting. Certainly, lots of research needs to be done. I think it would only be comprehensive if it involved specialists like me, audiologists with an interest like Dr. Fournier's, and cognitive specialists as well, because that's a big part of it.
We see a corollary in these kinds of symptoms in the dizziness world, where patients are exposed to certain noxious stimuli and end up having chronic dizziness from that. Many of the symptoms in ASI are very similar. The trigger was just an acoustic injury. There's probably a lot of cross-learning available on that side.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
Using the precautionary principle, should the Canadian Parliament continue the use of hybrid Parliament? It's one thing to institute this while you're dealing with a pandemic, but if you're not dealing with a pandemic, this appears to me to at least make life easier for MPs, which is a debate that we will have with the public.
In the interest of the health and safety of our interpretative staff—whom, in a bilingual country, we depend on immensely—should we, in your opinion, using the precautionary principle, proceed with hybrid Parliament without actually having these studies done first? Or would you suggest that we actually get some of the evidence before we continue with hybrid Parliament?
12:15 p.m.
Otolaryngologist and Neuro-Otologist, Assistant Professor, Department of Otolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I think it is well shown that there is harm, so I don't think there's too much point in waiting and causing more harm while we're doing studies—the studies won't happen overnight. If there's no convincing reason, say, COVID-19-wise, to continue with hybrid meetings, then I see no reason to continue to expose people to harm.
Having said that, they are still exposed to harm from interpreting just as they are now. It's just that virtual meetings and the technology to do that very well had to catch up very quickly over the last two years. They will still be exposed to such harm, to a lesser degree, even with in-person meetings, and that's shown by evidence going way back, long before COVID-19 was a problem, but you can try to minimize that exposure as much as possible.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
I'm looking for an opinion, and any of the three witnesses can feel free to chime in on this if they choose to.
Prior to COVID-19, committees such as this would offer video conferencing for guests, but it was not over Zoom, and it was not over the person's individual Internet connection. They would have to go to a place that actually offered that video conferencing capability. Now what's being proposed is continuing on with the Zoom version—not the pre-COVID-19 video conferencing version, where we had much better access. People would only have video conferencing in places where they had high-speed access, for example.
Would your recommendation be that it would be okay to return to that style of video conferencing, because we didn't have those problems? We never heard of these types of hearing injuries or problems in that particular style. I would argue that the technology, even though it's caught up and come a long way, has still not caught up to where we were with the pre-COVID-19 video conferencing.
Does anyone want to weigh in on that?
12:20 p.m.
Otolaryngologist and Neuro-Otologist, Assistant Professor, Department of Otolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
The technology is definitely one part of the exposure problem, but any kind of over-ear or in-ear noise or pops, which happen in any kind of remote conferencing, can still expose people to problems, as we see by those who do those other occupations that I mentioned. I know we haven't heard of it here; that does not mean it was not happening and not recognized.
12:20 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Audiologist, Université Laval, As an Individual
I wanted to add that there are several factors to be considered. Yes, there is the technological aspect, but there is also the work environment. A person is in a certain work environment and tries to regulate the sound in the room. For example, I am at home right now. I would have liked to be at Parliament, but I was only given the notice to appear yesterday. When you are at home, you try to control your sound environment to some extent, but there are limits. Someone may come in. Just now, there were grounds keepers blowing leaves with a blower. So apart from the technology, we have to take factors associated with the work environment into account.
The technology will be improving, but there are also factors that we can control better when we are in a silent location, arranged for the purpose, and have a proper internet connection and headset, for example. That can all reduce the risk of being exposed to sound volumes that are higher than necessary.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
12:20 p.m.
Professor, University of Geneva, As an Individual
Sure. Very briefly, I think one factor that needs to be considered is volume and frequency. We know from surveys that were carried out among AIIC members, for example—members of the International Association of Conference Interpreters—that the frequency with which they would be asked to interpret remotely, and to be in hybrid settings, was extremely low. It was proportionately higher in a country like Canada, where over-the-phone interpreting, in particular, was more widely spread, which was actually the genesis of one of our experiments.
After that, as soon as you can control the environment, I think you can control some of the factors that are of negative impact to both the psyche and the hearing.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
Thank you, Professor.
We will now go to Mr. Fergus, for up to six minutes.
October 20th, 2022 / 12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to thank all the witnesses who are here today. This is an excellent panel of witnesses who are providing us with important views.
You have all said that this problem did exist before the hybrid format in Parliament. The problem affected everyone, especially our interpreters, who do work that is exceptionally difficult but is absolutely essential to the functioning of Parliament. Wearing headphones always has physical and cognitive consequences, whether you are participating in a meeting physically or virtually.
I do not imagine that you are going to suggest we stop providing interpretation for in-person Parliament. However, what should we do to reduce the repercussions on the interpreters as much as possible, when they not only have to listen to us, but also have to provide the interpretation at the same time? What should we do to minimize the impact on their ears, which are the tool they work with?
I will put the question to Mr. Fournier first, then to Mr. Seeber, and then to Dr. Tse.
12:20 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Audiologist, Université Laval, As an Individual
The first thing to do is listen to them. The interpreters who report symptoms are the ones who know the symptoms best. After how much time, and after what kind of meeting, are they most likely to experience them? So you have to start by listening to the interpreters when they report symptoms.
I also believe that adjustments can be made. As my colleague was saying earlier, more research has to be done. Obviously, adjustments can be made, for example regarding their working time and their work environment. Again, it takes a bit of research to determine this exactly.
We are looking for a miracle solution or a technological miracle, but my feeling is that there isn't one. I would tend to try to understand the situation and the factors that generate these kinds of symptoms and try to adjust the situation so the interpreters do not have the symptoms.
I don't know whether that answers your question.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
12:25 p.m.
Professor, University of Geneva, As an Individual
Thank you for your question.
I agree entirely; more research is needed. In our experiments, we have always worked with frequencies, but that is just one small part of the parameters that influence sound quality. We have little knowledge about many parameters.
If we were able to know more, we could then try to control the part of the software and hardware used by everyone affected by this communication process in order to have the best equipment on site. However, people connect via their mobile devices or from their cars, where we cannot control anything.
In my opinion, for the moment, the only possible solution is to reduce the time that the interpreters are exposed to these parameters.
12:25 p.m.
Otolaryngologist and Neuro-Otologist, Assistant Professor, Department of Otolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I'm going to point to the other side of the equation, which is what happens after they already have symptoms. From what I can tell, these patients don't really get referred to see us.
After speaking to interpreters outside in the hallway here before I came in.... They are having a lot of trouble having their symptoms recognized for what they are, getting the appropriate treatment and referrals and getting compensation, like other workers would do, through the WSIB or similar agencies. They have not been able.... Because they can't get recognized that they have this problem, they cannot then go further with trying to help improve their quality of life and get back to work.
I think the other side of the problem is that we have to recognize that this is happening and help these people after they've already suffered symptoms.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
I do not have a lot of speaking time left. I would like the witnesses, in turn, to give a very short answer.
If I summarize what you are saying, the interpreters' work is necessary and carries its share of consequences with it. You would really like us to remedy the situation in order to minimize the repercussions, even if they cannot be eliminated completely.
Have I understood you correctly?
12:25 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Audiologist, Université Laval, As an Individual
I will answer quickly. It is up to the committee to decide whether that is to continue or not. There are a host of variables associated with democracy and with other parameters.
In terms of health and safety, if we continue going forward, I think it will have to be adjusted better to minimize the risks to the interpreters. That is my very short answer.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal