Stress assignment in reading Italian polysyllabic pseudowords

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive Psychology
• Phonology

Background:

• Understanding how readers process and stress unfamiliar words is crucial for models of reading aloud.
• The role of lexical distributional information in assigning stress to pseudowords is not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how Italian readers assign stress to pseudowords.
• To determine if distributional information, like stress neighborhood, influences pseudoword stress assignment and naming speed.

Main Methods:

• Four naming experiments were conducted with Italian readers.
• Participants were presented with pseudowords to assess stress assignment and naming speed.
• Analysis focused on the impact of stress neighborhood and stress patterns (penultimate vs. antepenultimate).

Main Results:

• Readers assigned stress to pseudowords based on stress neighborhood when this information was lexically prevalent.
• Reading speed was faster for pseudowords with antepenultimate stress compared to penultimate stress.
• This speed difference was linked to articulation planning, not distributional information.

Conclusions:

• Orthographic/phonological distributional information can guide pseudoword stress assignment under specific lexical conditions.
• Distributional information does not enhance pseudoword naming speed; articulation planning is the key factor.
• Reading aloud and speech production models should integrate at the phonological encoding stage.