Abstract: Bilingual processing demands more cognitive resources than monolingual processing, and translation, as a complex form of bilingual processing, offers valuable insights into the neural mechanisms of bilingual brain functioning when examined from the perspective of cognitive resource allocation. This study employs a multi-method approach, combining eye-tracking, retrospective protocols, and questionnaires, to investigate the impact of topic familiarity on translators’ allocation of cognitive resources. The findings reveal that: 1) Compared to tasks involving unfamiliar topics, translators consume significantly fewer cognitive resources overall in tasks with familiar topics, particularly in source text comprehension and online information seeking, but allocate significantly more cognitive resources to target text production; 2) Translators exhibit more frequent attention shifts between source text comprehension and online information seeking than between target text production and information seeking, often adopting a “source text reading — online information seeking — source text reading” cognitive processing pattern, which remains stable regardless of topic familiarity; 3) A translation process model based on online information seeking is constructed, drawing on Bell’s translation process model. This study contributes to the theoretical and empirical research on translation process (TPR) and provides insights for second language teaching and translator training.