RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WORD STRESS SENSITIVITY AND READING: AN ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION

Abstract

Prosody, the suprasegmental aspects of phonology, contributes to language acquisition and speech perception. To further analyze this, the present study aims to use a cross-modal priming design in which auditory rhythmic stimuli based on duration were used to prime visually presented trochaic words (i.e., stressed on the first syllable) and iambic words (i.e., stressed on the second syllable). The scalp distribution of Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) indicates rhythmic processing as part of a general rule-based error detection system. In addition, a positive correlation was found between the participants' musical rhythm aptitude and the negativity displayed in response to mismatching iambic words. In line with the previous literature, the results indicated that rhythmic auditory patterns influenced the processing of subsequently presented visual words. The results are in line with previous research suggesting a potential benefit of music training to improve speech rhythm sensitivity.