The role of target word stress in auditory comprehension by aphasic listeners

The present investigation was designed to determine the influence of stressed word prosody on auditory comprehension by listeners with aphasia. Paragraph-length narratives were computer-edited to yield two conditions. In one condition, both the target words and the surrounding context were prosodically neutral; in the second condition, target words were stressed and the surrounding contexts were prosodically neutral. The paragraph-length stimuli were presented to 10 aphasic listeners and their comprehension was tested. Analysis revealed that prosodic information carried only by stressed target words, within paragraph-length stimuli, did not provide significant comprehension benefits to aphasic listeners. The comprehension improvement typically observed when paragraph-length narratives are stressed is, therefore, most likely due to prosodic cues that precede stress-bearing target words.