Dipartimento di Psicologia Generale, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.
PLoS One. 2009 Sep 29;4(9):e7219. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007219.
Four experiments employed a priming methodology to investigate different mechanisms of stress assignment and how they are modulated by lexical and sub-lexical mechanisms in reading aloud in Italian. Lexical stress is unpredictable in Italian, and requires lexical look-up. The most frequent stress pattern (Dominant) is on the penultimate syllable [laVOro (work)], while stress on the antepenultimate syllable [MAcchina (car)] is relatively less frequent (non-Dominant). Word and pseudoword naming responses primed by words with non-dominant stress--which require whole-word knowledge to be read correctly--were compared to those primed by nonwords. Percentage of errors to words and percentage of dominant stress responses to nonwords were measured. In Experiments 1 and 2 stress errors increased for non-dominant stress words primed by nonwords, as compared to when they were primed by words. The results could be attributed to greater activation of sub-lexical codes, and an associated tendency to assign the dominant stress pattern by default in the nonword prime condition. Alternatively, they may have been the consequence of prosodic priming, inducing more errors on trials in which the stress pattern of primes and targets was not congruent. The two interpretations were investigated in Experiments 3 and 4. The results overall suggested a limited role of the default metrical pattern in word pronunciation, and showed clear effect of prosodic priming, but only when the sub-lexical mechanism prevailed.
四项实验采用启动方法来研究压力分配的不同机制，以及它们如何在意大利语朗读中被词汇和亚词汇机制调节。在意大利语中，词汇重音是不可预测的，需要词汇查找。最常见的重音模式（主导）是在倒数第二个音节[laVOro（工作）]上，而在倒数第三个音节[MAcchina（汽车）]上的重音则相对较少（非主导）。由非主导重音的单词启动的单词和伪单词命名反应——需要整体单词知识才能正确阅读——与由非单词启动的反应进行了比较。测量了单词的错误百分比和非单词的主导重音反应的百分比。在实验 1 和 2 中，与由单词启动相比，由非单词启动的非主导重音单词的重音错误增加了。结果可能归因于亚词汇代码的更大激活，以及在非单词启动条件下默认分配主导重音模式的趋势。或者，它们可能是韵律启动的结果，在与启动和目标的重音模式不一致的试验中导致更多错误。在实验 3 和 4 中研究了这两种解释。总体结果表明，默认韵律模式在单词发音中作用有限，并且清楚地显示了韵律启动的效果，但仅在亚词汇机制占主导地位时才会出现。
