Testing predictions about the processing of word stress in reading using event-related potentials

ABSTRACT

Both computational models of English reading that generate word stress predict a processing advantage for words with initial syllable stress. They differ, however, on whether they process words incrementally and learn nonlinear spelling-stress relationships. Two experiments using event-related potentials were used to investigate these predictions. The first examined trisyllabic stimuli. Differences found on P200 and N400 components suggested a processing advantage for words with initial syllable stress. The second examined root morphemes within words that have high frequency suffixes that are stress predictive. A processing advantage on the N400 component was found with root morphemes that typically have initial syllable stress, even when the whole-word stress pattern differed. This provides evidence that stress is generated incrementally, where it is assigned to parts of words as they are processed, and that stress assignment is not necessarily affected by high frequency nonlinear relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• Word stress
• event-related potentials
• reading
• N400
• P200

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Note that initial letter scores are not exactly the same across groups using the same root morpheme because scores for words are calculated based on only those words with an identical number of syllables. Thus, the same set of letters can have different scores if it occurs in words with a different number of syllables. There are also a small number of items that are different due to idiosyncratic CELEX codings that can, for example, cause some words to have different orthographic and phonological syllables despite what appears to be the same orthography (e.g. the “neg” in negation and negative).

Additional information

Funding

This work was in part funded by the Australian Research Council from a Discovery grant awarded to Conrad Perry [DP170101857].