This empirical study analyses the impact of a psychological factor, namely implicit theories (IT), on the perception of the quality of a simultaneous interpretation (SI). The study aims to contribute to research into interpreting quality by analysing the interrelationship between recipients’ IT and their evaluation of a SI. Research on IT has focused on the answer to questions such as what makes a success or failure in different domains. Building on a perspective initiated in 2019 in which the study of IT was adapted for interpreting quality research, this study presents a new audio manipulation method that enabled the researchers to change the female voice of a German-Spanish SI (Audio A) into a male voice (Audio B), in order to study the impact of gender on quality assessment in SI. The quality expectations of 63 users (laypersons) and 54 interpreter trainees (semi-experts) are also analysed. The results lend empirical support for the IT hypothesis regarding gender-related professionalism. In addition, in accordance with the IT hypothesis, being a layperson or semi-expert moderates the effect of the evaluation of different aspects measured in both audios on the perceived overall quality of the interpreter’s work.
