Poster D34

When Prosodic Perception is Overridden: An ERP Study of the Compound/Phrasal Stress Distinction in English

Stewart McCauley¹, Arild Hestvik¹, Irene Vogel¹;¹University of Delaware

The present study examined listeners' ability to distinguish between compound and phrasal stress (e.g., hótdog vs. hot dóg) in English. Previous research using picture-word matching tasks has demonstrated a tendency to incorrectly interpret phrasally stressed strings as compounds (cf. Atkinson-King, 1973; Vogel & Raimy, 2002; Vogel et al., 2009). We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate whether this pattern stems from poor perceptual sensitivity to the compound/phrasal stress distinction, or from post-perceptual bias in behavioral response selection (e.g., due to frequency, plausibility, or preference for analyzing strings as lexical items). 20 adults participated. Test items were pairs of segmentally identical phrases and compounds. In each trial, an image (e.g., a sweating canine) established context and was followed by a sentence including either the congruent or incongruent stress pattern (e.g., hótdog or hot dóg), resulting in a 2 (stress pattern) x 2 (congruency) within-subject design. Participants indicated whether the item depicted was named correctly. The behavioral results replicated previous findings of greater accuracy for compound stress. However, a right-anterior positivity was observed for both stress patterns when incongruent with the context, most likely in response to the prosodic expectancy violation (cf. Paulmann & Kotz, 2008). A left-anterior negativity (LAN) was observed for incongruent compound stress, whereas incongruent phrasal stress elicited a larger LAN followed by a P600-like posterior positivity. The LAN/P600 response may reflect the computation of unanticipated syntactic structure. The ERP results suggest that listeners are equally sensitive to both stress patterns but possess a strong post-perceptual bias for compounds.

Keywords: Primary = LANGUAGE: Other; Secondary = PERCEPTION & ACTION: Audition

 
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