Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation

part of the 
“
if-then
” rule. For example: 
If the traffic light is
green 
Then drive through the junction 
If the traffic light is
red 
Then stop and wait until it turns 
green 
119 
•
•
•
•

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Understanding Users 
Procedural Memory 
Procedural memory is acquired using a number of processes: motor skill 
learning, cognitive and perceptual learning as well as classical conditioning, 
priming, habituation and sensitisation. 
Motor skill learning 
is the means by which we remember how to do 
physical activities like blinking, moving our fingers, pushing buttons etc. 
Perceptual learning 
is the process of learning h
how to perceive sensory in-
formation each time we encounter it. For instance, the first time we try to 
ride a bicycle, our senses will tell us that we are not balanced and that we 
are falling. As a result we may pull our arms up to protect our head as we 
fall to the ground. With practice, however, this sensory information results 
in us making slight changes in our body position to correct the loss of bal-
ance and continue cycling. 
Clinical or Pavlovian conditioning 
is our memory for a response that is 
caused by a stimulus and a reinforcer. Drawing its name in part from ex-
periments conducted by Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (Fredholm 2001), this type 
of memory continues even without the reinforcer. 
Priming
is the process whereby triggers or cues which activate informa-
tion from memory are stored. Priming memory is short-lived and available 
only through the sense that activates it – it cannot be activated or accessed 
by any other sense. Furthermore, this type of memory does not include the 
subsidiary information such as when and where the memory occurred. 
To put this in context, let us take the following example: if you were 
asked to think of the colour red and were then asked to think of a particular 
type of flower and then an emotion, you might think of a rose and anger. 
The word “red” acts as a trigger which is temporarily stored and which ac-
tivates other information from memory. 
Habituation
is the process whereby we become accustomed to sensations 
repeated over time. If we think back to the example of office air condition-
decrease our attention to the noise of the fan after a certain amount of time. 
Sensitisation
is the process whereby we acquire sensitivities to specific 
events, situations or actions. If, for example, you were bitten by a dog as a 
child, the mere sound of a dog barking may provoke an extreme reaction as 
an adult. 
120
ing on page 110, we can see that habituation is the memory that allows us to 

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Cognitive Processing