Prefixes repel stress in reading aloud: Evidence from surface dyslexia

This study examined the importance of prefixes as sublexicalcues for stress assignment during reading aloud English disyllabic words.In particular, we tested the hypothesis that prefixes repel stress(Rastle & Coltheart, 2000) by investigating the likelihood with whichpatients with surface dyslexia assign second-syllable stress to prefixedwords. Five such patients were presented with three types of disyllabicwords for reading aloud: 'regular' prefixed words with weak-strong stresspattern (e.g., remind); 'irregular' prefixed words with strong-weakstress pattern (e.g., reflex); and non-prefixed words with strong-weakstress pattern (e.g., scandal). Results showed that all five patientsfrequently regularized the strong-weak prefixed words by pronouncing themwith second syllable stress. These regularization errors provide strongevidence for the functional role of prefixes in stress assignment duringreading. Additional computational simulations using the rule-basedalgorithm for pronouncing disyllables developed by Rastle and Coltheart(2000) and the CDP++ model of reading aloud (Perry et al., 2010) allowedus to evaluate how these two opponent approaches to reading aloud fare inrespect of the patient data.