This study explored the effect of the shifting ability on the performance of Chinese and Japanese consecutive interpreting with different difficulty levels. By comparing the experimental results of advanced Japanese-as-a-foreign-language (JFL) learners and master of translation and interpreting (MTI) students, it is found that the shifting ability significantly influences the performance of Chinese-Japanese consecutive interpreting. The effect differs between JFL learners and MTI students and is more significant for MTI students. These results indicate that general cognitive function training can be introduced into interpreting teaching to improve interpreting ability.