Is machine translation a dim technology for its users? An eye tracking study

State-of-the-art research shows that the impact of language technologies on public awareness and attitudes toward using machine translation has been changing. As machine translation acceptability is considered to be a multilayered concept, this paper employs criteria of usability, satisfaction and quality as components of acceptability measurement. The study seeks to determine whether there are any differences in the machine-translation acceptability between professional users, i.e., translators and language editors, and non-professional users, i.e., ordinary users of machine translation who use it for non-professional everyday purposes. The main research questions whether non-professional users process raw machine translation output in the same way as professional users and whether there is a difference in the processing of raw machine-translated output between users with different levels of machine-translated text acceptability are analyzed. The results of an eye tracking experiment, measuring fixation time, dwell time and glance count, indicate a difference between professional and non-professional users' cognitive processing and acceptability of machine translation output: translators and language editors spend more time overall reading the machine-translated texts, possibly because of their deeper critical awareness as well as professional attitude toward the text. In terms of acceptability overall, professional translators critically assess machine translation on all components of which confirms the findings of previous similar research. However, the study draws attention to non-professional users' lower awareness regarding machine translation quality. The study was conducted within a research project that received funding from the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT, agreement No S-MOD-21-2), seeking to explore and evaluate the impact on society of machine translation technological solutions.

The Psychological Well-Being and Civic Engagement of Polish, Croatian and Lithuanian Academic Students during COVID-19 Outbreak

The aim of this research was to recognize the relationship between well-being and civic engagement under the difficult circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic amongst students from Poland, Lithuania and Croatia. Overall, 1362 academic students (Poland, n = 596, Croatia, n = 386, and Lithuania, n = 379) participated in the study. Mean rank differences in civic engagement level (overall CE) were analysed by levels of psychological well-being (overall PWB and its subscales) using the Kruskal-Wallis test (one-way ANOVA on ranks). We conducted post hoc analysis with Bonferroni tests to measure the significance of differences in CE between the detailed levels of PWB. To avoid biases due to interaction effects between dependent variables, the analysis of mean ranks was followed by a binomial logistic regression analysis model and subgroups analysis (by gender and by country). Results obtained showed that students with higher levels of psychological well-being have higher levels of civic engagement. The differences in the CE level are most pronounced in relation to the dimension of a PWB, such as "positive relations with others", followed by "personal growth", "autonomy", and "self-acceptance". In a crisis, such as a pandemic, it is worth encouraging students to take targeted actions, as well as to create actions referring to personal development and relationships. There were no differences in the direction and shape of the associations between psychological well-being and civic engagement with respect to the country and the gender of the participants, which leads us to draw conclusions pointing to the globalised nature of student experience during the pandemic in this part of Europe.