Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Lexical and Metrical Stress in Word Recognition: Lexical or Pre-lexical Influences?

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The influence of lexical stress and/or metrical stress on spoken word recognition was examined. Two experiments were designed to determine whether response times in lexical decision or shadowing tasks are influenced when primes and targets share lexical stress patterns (JUVenile–BIBlical [Syllables printed in capital letters indicate those syllables receiving primary lexical stress.]). The results did not support an effect of lexical stress on the organization of lexical memory. In Experiment 3 primes and targets whose first syllables shared lexical stress only (MUDdy–PASta), metrical stress only (alTHOUGH–PASta), both cues (LECtern–PASta), or neither cue (conTROL–PASta) revealed no priming effect. However, targets whose first syllables were strong were responded to faster than targets whose first syllables were weak. Experiment 4 manipulated the metrical stress patterns of bi-syllabic primes and targets. Targets with strong–weak metrical stress patterns were responded to more quickly than those with strong–strong or weak–strong patterns. Although the priming paradigm did not reveal an influence of lexical and metrical stress on the organization of lexical memory, the data do support an influence of strong syllables on the processing of auditorily presented words.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Balota D.A., Chumbley J.I. (1984). Are lexical decisions a good measure of lexical access? The role of word frequency in the neglected decision stage. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 10, 340–357

    Google Scholar 

  • Baum S. (2002). Word recognition in individuals with left and right hemisphere damage: The role of lexical stress. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23, 233–246

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beach C.M. (1991). The interpretation of prosodic patterns at points of syntactic structure ambiguity: Evidence for cue trading relations. Journal of Memory and Language, 30, 644–663

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bock K., Mazzella J.R. (1983). Intonational marking of given and new information: Some consequences for comprehension. Memory and Cognition, 11, 64–76

    Google Scholar 

  • Bolinger D. (1981). Two kinds of vowels, two kinds of rhythm. Bloomington, Indiana University Linguistics Club

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins A.M., Loftus E.F. (1975). A spreading activation theory of semantic processing. Psychological Review 82, 407–428

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Connine C.M., Clifton C. Jr., Cutler A. (1987). Effects of lexical stress on phonetic categorization. Phonetica 44, 133–146

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cooper N., Cutler A., Wales R. (2002). Constraints of lexical stress on lexical access in English: Evidence from native and non-native listeners. Language and Speech 45, 207–228

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cutler A. (1976). Phoneme monitoring reaction time as a function of preceding intonation contour. Perception and Psychophysics 20, 55–60

    Google Scholar 

  • Cutler A. (1986). Forbear is a homophone: Lexical prosody does not constrain lexical access. Language and Speech 29, 201–220

    Google Scholar 

  • Cutler A. (1989). Auditory lexical access: Where do we start?. In: Marslen-Wilson W. (Eds), Lexical representation and process. Cambridge MA, MIT Press, pp. 342–356

    Google Scholar 

  • Cutler A. (1990). Exploiting prosodic probabilities in speech segmentation. In: Altmann G. (eds), Cognitive models of speech processing: Psycholinguistic and computational perspectives. Cambridge MA, MIT Press, pp. 105–121

    Google Scholar 

  • Cutler A. (1996). Prosody and the word boundary problem. In: Morgan J.L., Demuth K. (eds), Signal to syntax: Bootsrapping from speech to grammar in early acquisition. Mahwah NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 87–99

    Google Scholar 

  • Cutler A., Butterfield S. (1992). Rhythmic cues to speech segmentation: Evidence from juncture misperception. Journal of Memory and Language 31, 218–236

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cutler A., Clifton C.E. Jr. (1985). The use of prosodic information in word recognition. In: Bouma H., Bouwhuis D.G. (eds), Attention and performance X. Hillsdale NJ, Erlbaum, pp. 183–196

    Google Scholar 

  • Cutler A., Dahan D., van Donselaar W. (1997). Prosody in the comprehension of spoken language: A literature review. Language and Speech 40, 141–201

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cutler A., Norris D. (1988). The role of strong syllables in segmentation for lexical access. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 14: 113–121

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Engdahl E. (1978). Stress and rhythm in speech production and perception. Unpublished manuscript, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

  • Fear B.D., Cutler A., Butterfield S. (1995). The strong/weak syllable distinction in English. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 97: 1893–1904

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ferreira F. (1993). Creation of prosody during sentence production. Psychological Review 100, 233–253

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Fourakis M. (1991). Tempo, stress and vowel reduction. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 90: 1816–1827

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gay T. (1978). Physiological and acoustic correlates of perceived stress. Language and Speech 21, 347–355

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Grosjean F. (1980). Spoken word recognition process and the gating paradigm. Perception & Psychophysics 28, 267–283

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamburger M.B., Slowiaczek L.M. (1996). Phonological priming reflects lexical competition in auditory word recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 3, 520–525

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamburger M.B., Slowiaczek L.M. (1999). On the role of bias in dissociated phonological priming effects: A reply to Goldinger (1999). Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 6, 352–355

    Google Scholar 

  • van Heuven V.J. (1985). Perception of stress pattern and word recognition: Recognition of Dutch words with incorrect stress position. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 78, S21 (Abstract).

  • Kreiman J. (1982). Perception of sentence and paragraph boundaries in natural conversation. Journal of Phonetics 10, 163–175

    Google Scholar 

  • Kučera H., Francis W.N. (1967). Computational analysis of present-day American English. Providence RI, Brown University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Lehiste I. (1970). Suprasegmentals. Cambridge MA, MIT Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Lehiste I., Olive J., Streeter L. (1976). Role of duration in disambiguating syntactically ambiguous sentences. Journal of Acoustical Society of America 60, 1199–1202

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lindfield K.C., Wingfield A., Goodglass (1999). The contribution of prosody to spoken word recognition. Applied Psycholinguistics 20, 395–405

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marslen-Wilson W.D. (1984). Function and process in spoken word recognition. In: Bouma H., Bouwhuis D.G. (eds), Attention and performance X: Control of language processes. Hillsdale N.J., Erlbaum, pp. 125–150

    Google Scholar 

  • McQueen J.M., Norris D., Cutler A. (1994). Competition in spoken word recognition: Spotting words in other words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 20: 621–638

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meyer D.H., Schvaneveldt R.W., Ruddy M.G. (1975). Loci of contextual effects in visual word recognition. In: Rabbit P.M.A., Dornic S. (eds), Attention and Performance V. San Diego CA, Academic Press, pp. 98–118

    Google Scholar 

  • Neely J.H. (1976). Semantic Priming and retrieval from lexical memory: Evidence for facilitatory and inhibitory processes. Memory and Cognition 4, 648–654

    Google Scholar 

  • Neely J.H. (1991). Semantic priming effects in visual word recognition: A selective review of current findings and theories. In: Besner D., Humphreys G. (eds), Basic processes in reading: Visual word recognition. Hillsdale NJ, Erlbaum, pp. 264–336

    Google Scholar 

  • Norris D.G. (1994). Shortlist: A connectionist model of continuous speech recognition. Cognition 52, 189–234

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Norris D.G., McQueen J.A., Cutler A. (1995). Competition and segmentation in spoken-word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 21: 1209–1228

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Quene H., Koster M.L. (1998). Metrical segmentation in Dutch: Vowel quality or stress?. Language and Speech 41: 185–202

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Radeau M., Morais J., Dewier A. (1989). Phonological priming in spoken word recognition: Task effects. Memory & Cognition 17, 525–535

    Google Scholar 

  • Schneider W., Eshman A., Zuccolotto A. (2002). E-Prime Reference Guide. Pittsburgh, Psychology Software Tools

    Google Scholar 

  • Slowiaczek L.M. (1990). Effects of lexical stress in auditory word recognition. Language and Speech 33, 47–68

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Slowiaczek L.M. (1991). Stress and context in auditory word recognition. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 20, 465–481

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Slowiaczek L.M. (1994). Semantic priming in a single-word shadowing task. American Journal of Psychology 107, 245–260

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slowiaczek L.M., Hamburger M.B. (1992). Prelexical facilitation and lexical interference in auditory word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 18: 1239–1250

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slowiaczek L.M., McQueen J.M., Soltano E.G., Lynch M. (2000). Phonological representations in prelexical speech processing: Evidence from form-based priming. Journal of Memory and Language 43, 530–560

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slowiaczek L.M., Pisoni D.B. (1986). Effects of phonological similarity on priming in auditory lexical decision. Memory & Cognition 14, 230–237

    Google Scholar 

  • Small L.H., Simon S.D., Goldberg J.S. (1988). Lexical stress and lexical access: Homographs versus nonhomographs. Perception and Psychophysics 44, 272–280

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Swerts M., Geluykens R. (1994). Prosody as a marker of information flow in spoken discourse. Language and Speech 37, 21–43

    Google Scholar 

  • Taft L.A. (1984). Prosodic constraints and lexical parsing strategies. Doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts.

  • Vroomen J., De Gelder B. (1995). Metrical segmentation and lexical inhibition in spoken word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 21: 98–108

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vroomen J., De Gelder B. (1997). Activation of embedded words in spoken word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 23: 710–720

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vroomen J., Van Zon M., De Gelder B. (1996). Cues to speech segmentation: Evidence from juncture misperceptions and word spotting. Memory and Cognition 24, 744–755

    Google Scholar 

  • Wingfield A., Goodglass H., Lindfield K.C. (1997). Word recognition from acoustic onsets and offsets: Effects of cohort size and syllabic stress. Applied Psycholinguistics 18: 85–110

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wingfield A., Lindfield K.C., Goodglass H. (2000). Effects of age and hearing sensitivity on the use of prosodic information in spoken word recognition. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research 43, 915–925

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Bowdoin College, 6900 College Station, Brunswick, ME, 04011, USA

    Louisa M. Slowiaczek & Hilary L. Bernstein

  2. Worcester State College, Worcester, MA, USA

    Emily G. Soltano

Authors
  1. Louisa M. Slowiaczek
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Emily G. Soltano
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Hilary L. Bernstein
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Louisa M. Slowiaczek.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Slowiaczek, L.M., Soltano, E.G. & Bernstein, H.L. Lexical and Metrical Stress in Word Recognition: Lexical or Pre-lexical Influences?. J Psycholinguist Res 35, 491–512 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-006-9026-7

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-006-9026-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation