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Perception and Bias in the Processing of Compound versus Phrasal Stress:

Evidence from Event-related Brain Potentials
Stewart M. McCauley, Arild Hestvik and Irene Vogel
Language and Speech published online 22 February 2012
DOI: 10.1177/0023830911434277
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DOI: 10.1177/0023830911434277
Phrasal Stress: Evidence from las.sagepub.com
Event-related Brain Potentials
Stewart M. McCauley
Cornell University, USA
Arild Hestvik and Irene Vogel

University of Delaware, USA
Abstract
Previous research using picture/word matching tasks has demonstrated a tendency to incorrectly
interpret phrasally stressed strings as compounds. Using event-related potentials, we sought
to determine whether this pattern stems from poor perceptual sensitivity to the compound/
phrasal stress distinction, or from a post-perceptual bias in behavioral response selection.
A secondary aim was to gain insight into the role played by contrastive stress patterns in online
sentence comprehension. The behavioral results replicated previous findings of a preference for
compounds, but the electrophysiological data suggested a robust sensitivity to both stress patterns.
When incongruent with the context, both compound and phrasal stress elicited a sustained left-
lateralized negativity. Moreover, incongruent compound stress elicited a centro-parietal negativity
(N400), while incongruent phrasal stress elicited a late posterior positivity (P600). We conclude
that the previous findings of a preference for compounds are due to response selection bias, and
not a lack of perceptual sensitivity. The present results complement previous evidence for the
immediate use of meter in semantic processing, as well as evidence for late interactions between
prosodic and syntactic information.
Keywords
compounds, event-related potentials (ERPs), meter, prosody, stress
1 Introduction
In previous psycholinguistic work on speech prosody, one phenomenon that has received little
attention is the use of contrastive stress patterns to distinguish meanings at the suprasegmental
Corresponding author:
Stewart M. McCauley, Department of Psychology, Uris Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-7601, USA
Email: [email protected]

2 Language and Speech 0(0)
level. Setting non-neutral stress patterns aside (such as those providing emphasis, contrast, and
focus), there are two types of information imparted through contrastive stress in English: differ-
ences between single words (lexical stress) and differences between compound words and phrases
(compound and phrasal stress). The two types of stress contrast can be exemplified by minimal
pairs, such as fórbear (noun) vs. forbéar (verb) in the case of lexical stress, and gréenhouse
(compound) vs. green hóuse (phrase) in the case of compound/phrasal stress. Previous studies
using behavioral methods (e.g., Cutler & Otake, 1999; Cutler & Van Donselaar, 2001; Soto-Faraco,
Sebastián-Gallés, & Cutler, 2001) and electrophysiology (e.g., Friedrich, Alter, & Kotz, 2001;
Friedrich, Kotz, Friederici, & Alter, 2004a) suggest that listeners use lexical stress information
during spoken word identification. However, the distinction between compound and phrasal stress
and the role it plays in online comprehension remain relatively unexplored, and represent the focus
of the present study.
Whereas lexical stress often involves simultaneous segmental and suprasegmental change
(e.g., note the difference in vowel quality for the first vowel in cónvict [noun] vs. convíct [verb]),
compound/phrasal stress variation is expressed only in the suprasegmental domain (Cutler,
1986; Vogel & Raimy, 2002). In compounds, the first element tends to be the primary stressed
syllable; in phrases, both elements tend to bear primary stress, with the second element being
stronger than the first (Gussenhoven, 2004; Plag, Kunter, Lappe, & Braun, 2008). It has also
been reported that minimal pairs of phonetically identical compounds and phrases (e.g., bláck-
board vs. black bóard) tend to differ in length, with the phrase being slightly longer (Farnetani,
Torsello, & Cosi, 1988).
In addition to work on the acoustic features of the compound/phrasal stress distinction, there has
been research focusing on its perception and processing, much of which has used minimal pairs of
segmentally identical but prosodically distinct phrases and compounds (such as hot dóg and
hótdog). Farnetani et al. (1988) found that, when subjects were asked to identify such items as
either compounds or phrases, compounds were rarely mistaken for phrases, while phrases were
often mistaken for compounds with a high degree of confidence. Vogel and Raimy (2002) used a
picture/word matching task in which subjects were presented with pairs of images representing a
compound and the corresponding phrase, followed by sentences in which either the compound or
the phrase appeared, in a neutral context. Subjects were asked to indicate which image matched the
sentence. Children and adults displayed a greater tendency to interpret phrasally stressed items as
compounds than the reverse. However, the opposite pattern for adult subjects was observed when
novel compounds were used; adults tended to disregard a compound stress pattern when they did
not have a lexical compound corresponding to an item they encountered for the first time. Vogel,
Hestvik, Bunnell, and Spinu (2009) employed a similar task in a study with a large number of adult
subjects, observing the same pattern of greater accuracy for compound stress with both synthetic
and natural speech stimuli.
These studies, which have all relied on offline measures of comprehension, raise a number of
questions about the contrastive use of compound and phrasal stress which may be easier to
address using online measures with high temporal resolutions, such as electrophysiology, which
hold the potential to differentiate between perceptual and post-perceptual processes. The present
study employed electrophysiology to investigate whether the observed preference for com-
pounds stems from poor perceptual sensitivity to the compound/phrasal stress distinction, or
from post-perceptual bias in behavioral response selection (e.g., due to frequency, plausibility,
or a preference for analyzing strings as words). A secondary goal was to illuminate the nature of
the compound/phrasal stress contrast’s contribution to online comprehension.

McCauley et al. 3
Before we describe the details of the present study, we first review previous findings from the
electrophysiological literature on speech rhythm/meter. Predictions for the current study are then
introduced in light of this research.
1.1 Electrophysiological correlates of metrical/rhythmic perception and use in online

processing
Previous electrophysiological work has suggested a role for metrical and rhythmic information in
a wide range of language processes. Early work in this direction investigated the role of rhythmic
information in spoken word identification. Friedrich et al. (2001) found that pitch contours within
words modulate early auditory potentials, suggesting that stress information is automatically dis-
criminated within the first syllable during spoken word recognition. Friedrich et al. (2004a)
extended these findings, showing that pitch contours within words modulate a positive deflection
known as the P350, which has been linked to facilitated lexical identification (see also Friedrich,
Kotz, Friederici, & Gunter, 2004b).
Investigating the role of meter in syntactic processing, Schmidt-Kassow and Kotz (2008)
found that the duration of constant intervals between successive phrases in a sentence modulated
the latency of the P600, a late positivity tied to violations of tense, agreement, and phrase struc-
ture (e.g., Hagoort, Brown, & Groothusen, 1993), as well as difficult syntactic integration (Kaan,
Harris, Gibson, & Holcomb, 2000). Extending these results, Schmidt-Kassow and Kotz (2009a)
demonstrated an anterior negativity in response to metric and combined metric/syntactic viola-
tions, which deflected earlier than an anterior negativity elicited by syntactic violations alone and
was followed by a late posterior positivity (P600). The authors took this as evidence that metric
information is processed early and used as a grid to organize the incoming speech stream, and that
metric and syntactic cues interact in a later “integrational” stage.
Other work has focused on the interplay between meter and semantics. Magne, Astésano, Ara-
maki, Ystad, Kronland-Martinet, and Besson (2007) found that misplaced stress accents in French
elicited an N400, a negative component linked to semantic processing (see Kutas & Federmeier,
2000, for a review). The authors interpreted this effect as reflecting disrupted access to word mean-
ing brought about by the changes to words’ metrical structures. Importantly, this effect was present
regardless of whether the task was explicit towards semantics or meter, suggesting that metrical
information is automatically used in semantic processing. A follow-up study found that musical
expertise modulated this component, in addition to enhancing an early exogenous component, the
P200 (which reflects perceptual processing; Hillyard & Picton, 1987; Shahin, Roberts, Pantev,
Trainor, & Ross, 2005), in response to the same metrical incongruities (Marie, Magne, & Besson,
2011). These findings have also been extended to silent reading. Magne, Gordon, and Midha
(2010) found that metrically unexpected words (stressed on the second syllable instead of the first,
as expected, or vice-versa) in visually presented lists elicited an N400-like negativity, which the
authors interpret as reflecting the impact of the unexpected stress pattern on semantic processing.
Luo and Zhou (2010) found that abnormal rhythmic patterns of the verb-noun combination in visu-
ally presented Chinese sentences elicited an early positivity, an N400-like negativity, and a late
positivity, with all three components modulated by semantic congruency, which the authors take as
further evidence that rhythmic patterns are used in semantic integration during silent reading.
In order to explore misplaced stress independently of semantic processing, Rothermich,
Schmidt-Kassow, Schwartze, and Kotz (2010) exposed subjects to “jabberwocky” sentences com-
posed of opaque pseudowords, and found an early, metrically induced negativity, which peaked

earlier than the classical N400 and was thus similar to that reported by Schmidt-Kassow and Kotz
(2009a). The authors were thus able to lend additional support to an early meter-related negativity,
which is distinct from the N400-like negativities reported above, and not directly tied to lexical
access or semantic integration.
Speech rhythm has also been shown to play a role in attentional processes. Wang, Friedman,
Ritter, and Bersick (2005) examined brain responses to deviant syllables in disyllabic speech
sounds which subjects were instructed to ignore, and found that a change from voiced conso-
nants to the corresponding unvoiced consonants always elicited a mismatch negativity response,
but a P3a response (a member of the P300 family of components related to attentional engage-
ment/orientation; Comerchero & Polich, 1999) only when the deviant syllable was stressed
rather than unstressed, regardless of its temporal position in the item. As the subjects were
instructed not to attend to the speech sounds, Wang et al. suggest that prosodic information,
unlike temporal information, serves to capture attention in speech analysis. In line with such a
view, Schmidt-Kassow and Kotz (2009b) found a P600 in response to slight metric deviations
when subjects were instructed to focus on meter, but not when subjects were instructed to focus
on grammatical structure. This finding resonates with a P600 response to metrical incongruities
observed by Magne et al. (2007), which was present only when the task was explicit towards
prosody rather than semantics.
The above findings lead to predictions about the ERP responses likely to be elicited by incon-
gruous compound and phrasal stress. Below, we briefly introduce the design of the present study
before discussing explicit predictions derived from these previous studies of speech rhythm/meter.
1.2 The present study

The present study employed minimal pairs of the type used by Vogel and Raimy (2002) and Vogel
et al. (2009). Minimal stress pairs afford a unique opportunity for investigating contrastive stress
patterns: brain responses to identical sets of auditory stimuli, under congruent and incongruent
contexts, can be compared. To this end, we recorded continuous EEG while subjects participated
in a violation paradigm in which utterances were either congruent or incongruent with a previously
presented visual stimulus, as a function of the stress pattern used to label the depicted object. The
visual stimulus consisted of a single image (depicting an item corresponding to only one stress
pattern) in each trial. We used 44 pairs of segmentally identical (but prosodically distinct) phrases
and compounds (e.g., hot dóg vs. hótdog) as test items. In experimental trials, the image (e.g., a
green-colored house) established context and was followed by an utterance featuring the test item
with either the congruent (green hóuse) or incongruent (gréenhouse) stress pattern, for a 2 (stress)
× 2 (congruency) within-subjects design. Participants indicated (with the press of a button) whether
the item depicted was named correctly. With EEG time-locked to the onset of the test item, ERPs
were calculated separately for each stress pattern as the difference between congruent and incon-
gruent trials.
Thus, a significant effect of congruency would show that prosodic mismatch with the visual
context was detected in incongruent trials, suggesting sensitivity to the compound/phrasal stress
distinction. If a post-perceptual bias drives the preference for compounds observed by Farnetani et
al. (1988), Vogel and Raimy (2002), and Vogel et al. (2009), we would expect to find a significant
brain response to the incongruent use of phrasal stress to describe images depicting compounds, and
of compound stress to describe images depicting phrases, even if subjects’ behavioral responses do
not indicate explicit awareness of the incongruity. If, on the other hand, the compound preference
stems from poor perceptual sensitivity to the distinction, we would not expect to observe a signifi-
cant response to prosodic incongruity.

McCauley et al. 5
Regarding the role of the compound/phrasal stress distinction in online sentence processing, a
number of explicit predictions can be derived from the literature. As Magne et al. (2007) found that
misplaced stress accents elicited an N400, suggesting disrupted access to word meaning, we might
expect a similar brain response to the incongruent use of compound or phrasal stress; if the stress
contrast assists in semantic processing, a metrical incongruity may lead to a disruption which
would be reflected at the scalp level by a component such as the N400. Given that a number of
studies have demonstrated P600 responses to metrical incongruities (e.g., Magne et al., 2007;
Marie et al., 2011; Schmidt-Kassow & Kotz, 2009a, 2009b), suggesting that metric cues interact
with other information in a later integrational stage, we might expect the incongruent use of either
stress pattern to drive a similar effect, given the bearing of this particular stress contrast on both
semantics and phrase structure. A further possibility is that misplaced stress in incongruent trials
will engage subject attention, leading to an orientation response which would be reflected by a
P300-like component (as in Wang et al., 2005).
2 Method
2.1 Participants
Twenty-five University of Delaware undergraduates were recruited and received course extra-
credit in exchange for their participation. All participants signed informed consent forms and
completed questionnaires on language, education, and health background. Five subjects were
excluded due to incomplete recording resulting from equipment malfunction (2) and experimenter
error (3). Of the remaining 20 participants, 17 were female, as the majority of students enrolled in
the course from which our participants were drawn were female. The mean age was 19 years
(range 18–20 years). Three women were left handed; results for these subjects were included in
light of studies reporting left-hemisphere language dominance in a high percentage of left-hand-
ers (e.g., Knecht et al., 2000). All subjects were native speakers of American English and reported
normal hearing and normal or corrected-to-normal vision.
2.2 Stimuli and design

The experiment consisted of 176 experimental trials spread equally across four conditions
(congruent compound, congruent phrasal, incongruent compound, incongruent phrasal), in addition
to 112 filler trials. The image presented in a given trial (e.g., a green-colored house) established
context and was followed by an utterance featuring the test item with either the congruent
(green hóuse) or incongruent (gréenhouse) stress pattern, for a 2 (stress) × 2 (congruency) within-
subjects design. Thus, an incongruent compound trial would feature an image related to a phrase
(such as the green-colored house used as an example above), followed by an utterance in which
the corresponding compound (in this instance, “gréenhouse”) was named. The opposite was the
case for incongruent phrasal trials, which featured images related to compounds (e.g., a glass
building with plants growing inside), followed by an utterance in which the corresponding phrase
(green hóuse) was named. Test items were 44 pairs of phonetically identical but prosodically
distinct phrases and compounds. In addition to the 16 minimal stress pairs used by Vogel et al.
(2009), we used 28 additional pairs constructed for the present study.1 Most of the test items were
bisyllabic (33), or trisyllabic with two syllables in the first word (8), though two of the items had
four syllables (two in each word). All compounds were uncontroversially stressed on the first
member in American English.

Filler items consisting of semantically related pairs of phrases and compounds were included,
as a means both of masking the purpose of the study and of gauging the level of subject atten-
tiveness to the task. Both congruent and “incongruent” filler trials were included. In congruent
filler trials, the item depicted in the image was named correctly; in incongruent filler trials, a
random item was named which was semantically unrelated to the image (see Appendix C for a
complete list of filler items). Because the incongruent trials involved items which were bla-
tantly unrelated to the visual context, they provided an appropriate means to gauge subject
attentiveness (i.e., an attentive subject would be expected to score at or near 100% on incongru-
ent filler items, despite their performance on incongruent experimental trials). The semantically
unrelated items used in incongruent filler trials did not differ from the images they were paired
with in any systematic way.
Every utterance used in the study was of the form: “This is the [test item].” In the case of plural
test items (3), the frame “These are the [test item]” was used. Minimal stress pairs used in the
experimental condition are listed (as phrases only) in Appendix A.
2.2.1 Trial structure. Each trial began with the presentation of the visual stimulus which was fol-
lowed by the utterance after 3 s. The visual stimulus was displayed continuously, overlapping with
the auditory stimulus, and persisted until a behavioral response was registered (through a Serial
Response Box, described below). Subjects responded by pressing one of two buttons, indicating
whether or not the subject felt the item depicted in the image had been named appropriately on that
trial. Immediately following the response, a feedback screen appeared indicating the subject’s
response choice (thereby reminding subjects which button they had pressed). Importantly, no feed-
back regarding the correctness of the response was given, and at no point did subjects encounter an
orthographic representation of the speech stimulus. If the subject did not respond within 5 s of the
auditory stimulus offset, no response was logged and a screen briefly appeared requesting faster
response on subsequent trials. There was an inter-trial interval of approximately 3 s, beginning
with the subject response on the previous trial. An example trial for each of the four experimental
conditions is given in Appendix B.
2.2.2 Speech stimuli. In order to ensure a high degree of uniformity and avoid potential con-
founds due to inconsistencies in natural speech, synthetic speech stimuli were used. Auditory
stimuli were developed using the ModelTalker TTS system (Yarrington et al., 2008), a concat-
enative synthesizer which allows control of timing and intonation. Thus, fundamental frequency
and timing effects associated with pitch and phrase accents were highly consistent across the
stimuli. Oscillogram and pitch contours for two utterances featuring the same test item are shown
in Figure 1, illustrating the prosodic difference between compound and phrasal stress in the
auditory stimulus set.
For a detailed analysis of the prosodic differences between compounds and phrases in speech
synthesized with the ModelTalker TTS system, see Vogel et al. (2009).
2.3 Procedure
Following setup for EEG recording, participants were seated in a comfortable armchair in a
sound- and electrically-shielded booth, facing a computer screen and speakers at an approximate
distance of 1 m. Stimulus presentation and behavioral response collection were controlled by PC
using E-Prime software and a Serial Response Box from Psychology Software Tools (Schneider,
Eschman, & Zuccolotto, 2002).

McCauley et al. 7
Figure 1. The left panels show the oscillogram and pitch contours for an utterance used in both the
congruent and incongruent compound conditions. The right panels show the oscillogram and pitch
contours for the corresponding utterance used in the phrasal conditions.
After a brief practice/task-familiarization session (lasting approx. 3 min), subjects were

instructed not to blink or move unnecessarily during auditory stimulus presentation. Importantly,
subjects were not informed of the purpose of the experiment or asked to attend to stress or prosody
in the stimuli. Rather, they were instructed (through initial on-screen instructions) to attend to
whether the correct item was named and if it was “pronounced” correctly. Subjects were instructed
to press a specific key on the Serial Response Box if they felt that the test item had been named
correctly and a different key if they felt it had been named incorrectly. Testing consisted of a single
session divided into four blocks of 72 trials, each lasting approximately 12 minutes and followed
by a short break. Impedance was rechecked (and, when necessary, electrodes were rehydrated)
between the second and third trial blocks.
All subjects received a single exposure to each possible stress/congruency combination for each
minimal pair (i.e., 4 for each pair). In order to control for the effects of seeing an image twice dur-
ing the test session, and to minimize recognition of the purpose behind the study, the order of
stimulus presentation was quasi-randomized with the constraint that half of the subjects received a
specific half (50%) of the images paired with a congruent stress pattern during the first half of the
session. The other half of the subjects received an incongruent stress pairing for the same images
the first group received with the congruent stress pattern during the first half of the session, and
vice-versa. Thus, the specific half of the images that were initially encountered in congruent trials
was counterbalanced between two groups.2 An additional constraint was that each test item was
used only once in each of the four trial blocks (thus, each of the four stress/congruency combina-
tions for each test item appeared in a different trial block).
The entire experimental session, including setup for electrophysiological recording, took
approximately 1.5 hrs.
2.4 Electrophysiological recording

Continuous EEG activity was recorded with an Electrical Geodesics 300 system, using a
128-channel Geodesic Sensor Net (Tucker, 1993) of Ag/AgCl plated electrodes housed in

electrolyte-soaked sponges, referenced to Cz. Data were recorded with a bandpass of .1–100 Hz
and digitized at 250 Hz. Electrode impedances were kept below 50 kΩ (cf. Ferree, Luu, Russell,
& Tucker, 2001). After recording, the continuous EEG was segmented into 1200 ms epochs,
time-locked to the onset of the critical word(s),3 using a 200 ms pre-stimulus baseline and a 1000
ms segment time. Following artifact decontamination (described in the next sub-section), data
were baseline corrected on the 200 ms pre-stimulus period and referenced to the average volt-
age, which is well suited to high-density EEG (Dien, 1998; Nunez & Srinivasan, 2006).4 ERPs
were calculated separately for each stress pattern as the difference between congruent and incon-
gruent trials.
2.4.1 Artifact decontamination. The 176 experimental trials per subject were submitted to an auto-
mated artifact decontamination procedure using Netstation software. A single channel in an epoch
was marked as bad if fast average amplitude exceeded 200 μV, if differential amplitude exceeded
100 μV, or if it had zero variance. Channels marked as bad in over 20% of trials were considered
bad in all trials. Trials containing more than 10 bad channels were excluded. When surrounded by
channels with good data, bad channels were deleted and replaced using spherical spline inter-
polation. The data were then submitted to a second automated procedure which performed inde-
pendent component analysis (Bell & Sejnowski, 1995) and automatically subtracted eyeblink
components that correlated at r = 0.9 or greater with an eyeblink template (Dien, 2010). After both
procedures, less than 11% of trials had been excluded, evenly distributed across conditions.
2.5 Statistical analysis

2.5.1 Analysis of electrophysiological data. Repeated-measures ANOVAs were performed on unfil-
tered mean amplitudes relative to baseline within four time windows, chosen based upon previous
findings and the timing of the observable ERP responses: 0–200 ms, 200–400 ms, 400–600 ms,
and 600–1000 ms. Statistical analyses covered 114 electrodes distributed among 9 regions of
interest. Following the recommendations of Dien and Santuzzi (2005), we grouped lateral elec-
trodes using three spatial factors: anteriority (anterior vs. posterior), laterality (left vs. right hemi-
sphere, excluding midline electrodes), and dorsality (superior vs. inferior). Figure 2 shows the
resulting 8 electrode sets. As the midline electrodes were necessarily excluded in tests involving
the lateral electrodes, separate tests were also performed for midline electrodes, using anteriority
(anterior vs. posterior midline) as a spatial factor.
Repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted for the midline and lateral electrodes separately
for each of the four time intervals. ANOVAs for the lateral electrodes included all 4 experimental
conditions in a six-way factorial design based upon the factors stress (2: compound vs. phrasal),
congruency (2: congruent vs. incongruent), anteriority (2: anterior vs. posterior), laterality (2: left
vs. right hemisphere), dorsality (2: superior vs. inferior), and block (2: first vs. second half of the
experiment), with subject as a random factor. The factor block was included to test for potential
repetition effects, as images presented during the second half of the experiment had been presented
during the first half, though paired with a different stress pattern (the counterbalanced design is
described above). ANOVAs for the midline included the 4 experimental conditions in a four-way
factorial design based upon the factors stress, congruency, anteriority, and block. Mean amplitudes
per time window were calculated as the average amplitude over all electrodes in a given region of
interest and used as the dependent measures in the ANOVAs. Analyses of specific regions were
only conducted when significant interactions between condition and spatial factors were found for
a particular time window.

McCauley et al. 9
Figure 2. Electrode sets resulting from three spatial factors: anteriority (anterior vs. posterior), laterality
(left vs. right), and dorsality (superior vs. inferior).
2.5.2 Analysis of behavioral data – signal detection theory analysis. In order to gain measures of sub-
ject sensitivity and response bias purely on the basis of the behavioral data, we carried out a signal
detection theory (SDT) analysis (as described in Macmillan and Creelman, 1991). For congruent
trials, a correct response (i.e., one indicating that the utterance matched the image) was coded as a
“hit,” whereas an incorrect response (i.e., one indicating that the utterance and image did not
match) was coded as a “miss.” For incongruent trials, a correct response (indicating a mismatch
between the utterance and image) was coded as a “correct rejection,” whereas an incorrect response
(indicating a match between the signal and image) was coded as a “false alarm.” Thus, we
conceived of the “signal” as congruence between the stress pattern in the utterance and the item
depicted in the image, and incongruence as “noise.”
Discriminability indexes (d’ – also known as the sensitivity index; a higher d’ indicates that a
signal is more easily detected) and criterion scores (a lower criterion score indicates a less con-
servative response pattern, i.e., greater bias towards indicating a match) were calculated for each
subject on the basis of hit and false alarm rates. Following the standard method (cf. Macmillan and
Creelman, 1991), d’ scores were calculated as the difference between the z-transforms of the hit
and false alarm rates (thus, a subject with identical hit and false alarm rates would receive a d’
score of 0). Criterion scores were calculated as the negative average of the z-transforms of the hit
and false alarm rates.
Importantly, two sets of d’ and criterion scores were calculated for each subject: one set for tri-
als in which the image indicated a compound, and one set for trials in which the image indicated a
phrase. Thus, a significant difference in d’ scores across image type would indicate greater subject

sensitivity to one of the stress patterns, while a significant difference in criterion scores would
indicate a response bias towards either the compound or the phrasal interpretation (i.e., subjects
would be more likely to indicate that the image matched the context when a certain type of image
appeared).
3 Results
3.1 Behavioral results
Behavioral results replicated previous findings of significantly greater accuracy for compound
stress. Mean accuracy was 89% (SD 7.2%) for congruent compounds, compared to 72% (SD
25.6%) for congruent phrases. In incongruent trials, there was a tendency to indicate (incor-
rectly) that the test item matched the image; subjects responded correctly to only 32% (SD
27.7%) of incongruent compounds and 13% (SD 11.8%) of incongruent phrases. A two-way
repeated-measures ANOVA, performed on logit-transformed proportions, confirmed significant
main effects of stress, F(1, 19) = 12.56, p < 0.01, and congruency, F(1, 19) = 45.17, p < 0.001,
with no significant interaction between stress and congruency, F(1, 19) = 2.41, p = 0.14.
Mean accuracy for the filler trials was 99% (SD 1.7%), indicating a high level of subject
attentiveness throughout the experiment.
3.1.1 Signal detection theory analysis. The signal detection theory (SDT) analysis of the behavioral
data was carried out to determine whether the pattern of greater accuracy with utterances featuring
compounds stemmed from differences in sensitivity (i.e., differences at the sensory level), or from
differences in response bias (i.e., differences at a higher level of decision making). Thus, the SDT
analysis provided a means to use the behavioral responses as an additional complement to the
electrophysiological data.
For images indicating a compound, the average subject d’ score was 0.076 and the average
criterion score was -1.315; for images indicating a phrase, the average d’ score was 0.291 while the
average criterion score was -0.771. Further analysis revealed a response bias towards the com-
pound interpretation of test items; criterion was significantly lower when compound-congruent
images set the context, t(19) = -3.23, p < 0.01. Criterion is an inverse measure of subject willing-
ness to indicate that a signal was present in an ambiguous situation. Thus, the significantly lower
criterion in this instance indicates a greater bias towards indicating that the image matched with the
auditory stimulus when a compound-related image was present. However, no significant difference
in sensitivity to each stress pattern was indicated, as the discriminability indexes (d’ scores) did not
differ significantly across the two stress patterns, t(19) = -1.61, p > 0.10.
3.2 ERP results

As subjects responded correctly to only 13% of incongruent phrasal trials, and 32% of incongruent
compound trials, a separate analysis of ERPs based on correctness of response was not feasible.
Furthermore, a primary motivation for the experiment was to examine whether there was percep-
tual sensitivity to the stress distinction using a method which did not rely on subjects’ behavioral
responses. Therefore, we included all trials not removed by the automated artifact detection proce-
dures in our analysis.5
Inspection of the grand average waveforms revealed that voltages for both of the incongruent
conditions were more negative than for congruent conditions from 400–1000 ms across the left

McCauley et al. 11
hemisphere electrodes. This effect was most prominent at anterior electrodes and began slightly
earlier (around 300 ms) for incongruent phrases, with a somewhat broader scalp distribution
relative to compounds. Incongruent compounds appeared to elicit an earlier posterior negativity,
peaking around 400 ms (similar to the N400 in timing and scalp topography), while a late posterior
positivity (600–1000 ms) was observed for the incongruent phrases. This posterior positivity
was characteristic of the P600 in both timing and scalp topography. Figures 3 and 4 provide
representative channels showing ERPs for the compound and phrasal conditions, respectively.
Below, we report all significant main effects of (and interactions involving) congruency.
Analysis of the 200–400 ms time window yielded a significant four-way interaction between
the factors stress, congruency, laterality, and dorsality, F(1, 19) = 8.46, p < 0.01, stemming from
a negative response to incongruent compounds, relative to the other conditions, which was most
prominent at right superior electrode sites, with a corresponding positive inversion which was
most prominent across left inferior electrode sites. As the interaction involved the factor lateral-
ity, this was followed by separate analyses for each hemisphere, which yielded a significant stress
× congruency × anteriority interaction, F(1, 19) = 4.60, p < 0.05, for the right hemisphere. Analy-
ses for both right hemisphere quadrants revealed a stress × congruency interaction, F(1, 19) =
7.82, p < 0.05, across the posterior quadrant, stemming from the greater negativity in response to
incongruent compounds.
ANOVAs for the 400–600 ms time window revealed a significant two-way interaction between
congruency and laterality, F(1, 19) = 9.77, p < 0.01, stemming from a broad left-lateralized nega-
tive response to both stress patterns in incongruent trials, relative to congruent trials, along with a
corresponding right-lateralized inversion. There was also a significant stress × congruency × block
Figure 3. ERPs elicited by congruent (solid line) and incongruent (dashed line) compound stress, low-
pass filtered at 30 Hz (for display purposes only). Nine representative channels (symmetrical across the
hemispheres) are displayed.

Figure 4. ERPs elicited by congruent (solid line) and incongruent (dashed line) phrasal stress,
low-pass filtered at 30 Hz (for display purposes only). Nine representative channels (symmetrical
across the hemispheres) are displayed.
interaction, F(1, 19) = 4.56, p < 0.05, due to more negative voltages for incongruent compounds,
relative to congruent compounds, during the first half of the experiment. Separate analyses for each
hemisphere revealed a significant main effect of congruency for both the left-lateralized effect,
F(1, 19) = 8.99, p < 0.01, and its right-lateralized inversion, F(1, 19) = 7.78, p < 0.05, along with
a four-way stress × congruency × dorsality × block interaction, F(1, 19) = 5.62, p < 0.05, across the
left hemisphere, due to a more negative response to incongruent (relative to congruent) compounds
at superior electrode sites during the first half of the experiment.
Analysis of the lateral electrodes in the 600–1000 ms time window revealed a significant
interaction between congruency and laterality once more, F(1, 19) = 4.43, p < 0.05, again driven
by the same effect, but neither the effect nor its inversion reached significance in separate analyses
performed for each hemisphere. Analysis of the midline electrodes yielded a stress × congruency
× anteriority interaction, F(1, 19) = 6.77, p < 0.05, due to more positive posterior voltages for
incongruent phrases, relative to the other conditions. Separate analyses for anterior and posterior
midline electrodes revealed a significant stress × congruency interaction, F(1, 19) = 6.99, p < 0.05,
along the posterior midline, again due to more positive voltages for incongruent phrases, relative
to other conditions.
3.2.1 Summary of main electrophysiological results. In summary, a sustained negativity was

observed across the left hemisphere for both stress patterns when incongruent with the image.
This effect was most prominent at anterior electrode sites, though there was no statistically
significant interaction involving anteriority. For phrases, the effect had a broader scalp distri-
bution in addition to beginning slightly earlier (see Figure 5). Despite these differences, the

McCauley et al. 13
Figure 5. Images depicting the scalp topography (overhead view) of the difference waves between
incongruent and congruent conditions for compounds (top) and phrases (bottom). Each of the four
components described in the ERP results summary is visible: the N400 for incongruent compounds
(top left), the left-lateralized negativity for both incongruent conditions (top right [compound] and bottom
left [phrasal]) and the P600 for incongruent phrases (bottom right).
effect was significant during the 400–600 ms time interval for both stress patterns, as indicated by
a main effect of congruency revealed by the hemispheric analyses. A right-lateralized centro-
parietal negativity, characteristic of the N400 in both timing and scalp topography (see discussion
section), was observed for compounds, but not phrases, when incongruent with the image. The
statistical significance of this effect is reflected by the stress × congruency interaction in the 200–
400 ms time interval in the right posterior quadrant. A late posterior positivity, characteristic of the
P600 in both timing and topography, was observed for incongruent phrasal stress (but not incon-
gruent compound stress). Analysis of this effect yielded a significant stress × congruency interac-
tion along the posterior midline during the final time interval (600–1000 ms). Figure 5 depicts the
scalp topography of each effect described in the above summary, at representative time points.
4 Discussion
The present study was conducted to determine (1) whether the apparent preference for compounds
observed in previous studies stems from poor perceptual sensitivity to the compound/phrasal stress

distinction, or whether it arises from a post-perceptual bias, and (2) whether electrophysiological
evidence could be gained in support of a specific role for the compound/phrasal stress contrast in
sentence processing. The present results help to address both questions.
Behavioral results replicated previous findings of a preference for the compound interpretation
of ambiguous strings (Farnetani et al., 1988; Vogel & Raimy, 2002; Vogel et al., 2009). Interest-
ingly, subjects had an overwhelming tendency to indicate (incorrectly) that the utterance matched
the image in incongruent trials. While the possibility remains that this pattern stems from the use
of synthetic speech stimuli (i.e., subjects explicitly or implicitly attributed any prosodic incongru-
ity to imperfections in the speech synthesis), this remains unlikely, as greater accuracy was
observed for compound trials (both congruent and incongruent) than for phrasal trials, a finding
consistent with the behavioral results of previous studies utilizing natural speech stimuli (Farnetani
et al., 1988; Vogel & Raimy, 2002; Vogel et al., 2009).
The signal detection theory (SDT) analysis of the behavioral results provides an avenue
through which to explore sensitivity to each stress pattern, as well as the possibility of bias
towards a given interpretation of ambiguous strings, solely on the basis of the behavioral data.
The finding of a significantly lower criterion score when the visual context was set by images
depicting compounds indicates a response bias towards the compound interpretation of test
items. The lack of a significant difference between discriminability indexes for compound- and
phrase-related images is consistent with the claim that subjects were equally sensitive to both
stress patterns.
The very same compounds and phrases elicited different brain responses as a function of
their congruence with the visual context. The SDT analysis of the behavioral results fits par-
ticularly well with the electrophysiological data. A left-lateralized sustained negativity was
observed for both incongruent compounds and incongruent phrases, in addition to an N400-like
negativity for incongruent compound stress, and a P600-like positivity for incongruent phrasal
stress. As subjects responded correctly to only 32% of incongruent compounds and 13% of
incongruent phrases, indicating (incorrectly) that the test item matched the context, the signifi-
cant brain response to the incorrect use of each stress pattern suggests that a post-perceptual
bias drives the preference for compounds observed in previous work. Had this pattern stemmed
from poor perceptual sensitivity to the compound/phrasal stress distinction, we would not have
expected to observe a significant electrophysiological response for trials in which the subject
failed to indicate that a stress rule had been violated (which was the case for 87% of the incon-
gruent phrasal trials and 68% of the incongruent compound trials).
Strong electrophysiological evidence for discrimination of stress is striking, given poor
performance on the behavioral task. Friedrich et al. (2001) found a similar conflict between
electrophysiological evidence for discrimination between pitch contours which were either con-
gruous or incongruous with the expected stress pattern of specific words, and poor behavioral
performance on a simultaneous stress evaluation task. Friedrich et al. conclude that stress infor-
mation is processed automatically, whereas an explicit evaluation of stress requires higher-level
controlled processes of a sort not usually involved in online spoken word recognition. This
interpretation is consistent with the pattern of results observed in the present study.
4.1 Implications for online comprehension

The electrophysiological data are also well suited to exploring the role played by the compound/
phrasal stress distinction in sentence comprehension, given the nature of the ERP components
observed. In what follows, we discuss the further implications of the observed ERPs for online
comprehension.

McCauley et al. 15
4.1.1 Left-lateralized sustained negativity. The left-lateralized negativity observed in response to

both incongruent compound and phrasal stress was significant during the last two time windows
(from 400–1000 ms), as reflected by significant interactions between congruency and laterality.
A significant main effect of congruency was observed from 400–600 ms in separate hemispheric
analyses. Though the negativity appeared to be most prominent at anterior electrode sites, the lack
of significant interactions involving the factor anteriority suggests that the negativity is a whole-
hemisphere effect. The slow drift of this negativity, combined with its broad scalp distribution,
gave it an appearance similar to the contingent negative variation (CNV; Walter, Cooper,
Aldridge, McCallum, & Winter, 1964) which has been observed in previous studies of metrical
processing (Domahs, Wiese, Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, & Schlesewsky, 2008; Magne, Astésano,
Lacheret-Dujour, Morel, Alter, & Besson, 2005), and with a left-lateralized scalp distribution in
previous studies of phonological processing (Spironelli & Angrilli, 2006; Rugg, 1984).
The CNV has traditionally been identified with anticipation processes, and is often found in
the interval between two associated stimuli when the second cues a response (Teece, 1972; Walter
et al., 1964). It has also been argued to reflect attentional orientation (Loveless, 1979), motor
preparation (Rohrbaugh & Gaillard, 1983), and increased working memory load (Ruchkin,
Canoune, Johnson, & Ritter, 1995). The present CNV-like negativity is unlikely to reflect a
difference in motor response preparation for incongruent trials, given poor subject performance
on the behavioral task in incongruent trials (i.e., a high propensity to indicate that the auditory
stimulus matched the visual context). It remains plausible, however, that the effect may reflect
differences in arousal, attention, or memory load.
Two previous studies, which found CNV-like negativities in response to metrical violations,
are highly relevant to the interpretation of the present effect. Magne et al. (2005) observed a CNV-
like component in response to pragmatically incongruous focal accents in sentence-final position,
which the authors interpret as reflecting anticipation processes stemming from prior prosodic
violations (a sentence-final focus violation always meant that a preceding focus violation was
heard sentence medially). Along similar lines, Domahs et al. (2008) observed a sustained negative
deflection in response to misplaced stress in trisyllabic words correctly stressed on the antepenul-
timate syllable. Subjects were visually presented with the critical word before exposure to the
auditory stimulus, allowing for prosodic expectations. Thus, the authors interpreted this effect as
a CNV elicited by the substitution of an initial weak syllable for a strong one, which led subjects
to maintain prosodic information in working memory until a strong syllable was heard.
Consistent with the interpretation offered by Domahs et al. (2008), the CNV-like negativity
elicited by incongruent compound and phrasal stress may reflect that subjects internally acti-
vated upcoming items, based on the visual context, and were more likely to maintain this infor-
mation when the incoming speech signal was inconsistent. The negativity may also reflect
greater ongoing comparison of the incoming speech signal with expected prosodic/phonological
patterns, in which predictions for a specific stress pattern were violated; that is, items with
incongruous stress information were processed more deeply. The interpretation offered by
Magne et al. (2005) of their own results may also be relevant: in the case of both incongruent
conditions, a prosodic violation over the first syllable was a perfect predictor of incongruence
over the subsequent syllable(s), which may have led to anticipation processes contributing to a
CNV-like effect at the scalp level.
However, it should be noted that the CNV-like effects observed by Magne et al. (2005) and
Domahs et al. (2008) were not strongly left-lateralized, as in the current case. Previous studies
of phonological processing have, however, revealed left-lateralized CNV effects during match-
ing tasks in which phonological information is activated by visually presented words. Rugg

(1984), for instance, found that such an effect developed during the inter-stimulus interval (ISI)
in a phonological matching task, which he interpreted as involving short-term memory processes
which were left-lateralized due to the nature of the task. Using a similar phonological matching
task, Spironelli and Angrilli (2006) found a left-lateralized CNV which formed during the ISI
and had a scalp topography highly similar to that observed in the present study. This finding was
in contrast to bilaterally distributed CNV responses observed for comparable orthographic and
semantic tasks using an identical set of words. Though the negativity observed in the present
study was elicited by the critical item (whereas in the aforementioned studies, the CNV devel-
oped during the ISI), it may be that subjects were more likely to maintain phonological/prosodic
representations in memory when the auditory input was incongruous, consistent with both the
interpretation offered by Rugg (1984) and (as discussed above) that of Domahs et al. (2008). It
may also be relevant that in the case of the aforementioned studies finding left-lateralized CNV
effects, the phonological information was activated on the basis of visual input (as in the present
study).
Thus, the present sustained negativity may reflect greater maintenance of phonological/
prosodic information in memory, as well as deeper processing in the form of comparisons
between the incoming speech signal and expected prosodic/phonological patterns. Regardless of
this interpretation, the effect clearly suggests that subjects were perceptually sensitive to viola-
tions of expectation for both stress patterns, despite the compound bias evident in the behavioral
results, and that this sensitivity influenced the online processing of test items.
4.1.2 Right-lateralized centro-parietal negativity (N400). The centro-parietal negativity observed in

response to incongruent compounds reached significance during the 200–400 ms time window in
the right hemisphere, peaking just before 400 ms. The effect was thus characteristic, in both timing
and scalp topography, of a well-documented electrophysiological component known as the N400,
which decades of research have linked to semantic processing (see Kutas and Federmeier, 2000,
for a review). An increase in the N400 is commonly observed in response to semantic incongrui-
ties, and this is widely held to indicate greater difficulties in integrating semantic information.
N400-like components have been observed in response to metrical incongruities in both
spoken and written language. Magne et al. (2005) found an N400-like negativity in response to
sentence-final words with pragmatically incongruous contrastive accents in French, which the
authors suggest may reflect integration difficulties. Magne et al. (2007) observed a similar
N400-like deflection in response to words with misplaced stress accents, which the authors inter-
pret as reflecting disrupted access to word meaning brought about by the changes to words’
metrical structures.
Recent studies have also uncovered N400-like responses to metrical incongruities during
silent reading. Magne et al. (2010) found that metrically unexpected words (i.e., stressed on the
second syllable instead of the first, as expected, or vice-versa) in visually presented lists of
English words elicited an N400-like negativity, which the authors interpret as reflecting the
impact of the unexpected stress pattern on semantic processing. Luo and Zhou (2010) found that
abnormal rhythmic patterns of the verb-noun combination in visually presented Chinese sen-
tences elicited an N400-like negativity, and that the addition of semantic incongruence enhanced
this effect (in addition to other components), which the authors take to indicate that rhythmic
patterns are used in semantic integration during silent reading.
It is reasonable to interpret the present N400-like effect as similar to those reported in the
aforementioned studies. While the N400 is sometimes bilaterally distributed, the right-lateralized
scalp distribution of the present effect is consistent with previously reported N400 effects (e.g.,

McCauley et al. 17
Astésano, Besson, & Alter, 2004; Kiefer, Weisbrod, Kern, Maier, & Spitzer, 1998; Kutas & Hillyard,
1982). The N400 has been shown to be sensitive to global, discourse-level information (e.g., van
Berkum, Hagoort, & Brown, 1999) as well as visual context (e.g., Knoeferle, Urbach, & Kutas,
2011), suggesting that the present N400-like effect, given the nature of the task, may stem from
incongruities between the images (depicting phrasal items) and the semantic representations
activated by the spoken compounds.
Under this interpretation, the lack of an N400 response to incongruent phrases most likely stems
from the frequency and plausibility of those items – they did not activate an incongruous semantic
representation to the same extent as did the (relatively more frequent and more plausible) com-
pounds, despite violating the expected stress pattern (see the discussion of the P600 effect below).
Though all phrases and compounds featured in the current study appeared in the same simple
context (the sentence frame “this is the ____”), the N400-like effect is consistent with those
observed in previous studies of rhythm, which have been used to argue for a role for such informa-
tion in semantic processing.
4.1.3 Late posterior positivity (P600). The late centro-parietal positivity observed in response to
incongruent phrases is characteristic of the classical P600 component, in both timing and scalp
topography. Although the P600 has traditionally been associated with syntactic violations
(e.g., Hagoort et al., 1993), it has also been observed in response to garden path sentences (e.g.,
Osterhout & Holcomb, 1992), as well as grammatical, non-garden path sentences in which syntac-
tic integration is more difficult (Kaan et al., 2000). While the P600 is often viewed as reflecting a
process of syntactic reanalysis and/or repair (e.g., Friederici, 1995; Osterhout & Holcomb, 1992),
the component may also reflect a process of late integration (e.g., Kaan & Swaab, 2003).
A number of P600-like positivities have been observed in response to prosodic incongruities in
syntactically well-formed sentences, as well as to combined prosodic/syntactic violations. Stein-
hauer, Alter, and Friederici (1999), for instance, observed a P600 in response to well-formed
sentences with incongruous prosodic phrasing, while Eckstein and Friederici (2005) observed a
P600 in response to well-formed sentences in which the final word was prosodically marked as
penultimate. More directly relevant are studies involving rhythmic incongruities. Magne et al.
(2007) found that misplaced stress accents in French elicited a late positivity, and Marie et al.
(2011) found that musical expertise modulated this effect. Schmidt-Kassow and Kotz (2009a)
found a P600 in response to metric and combined metric/syntactic violations; because the P600
effects observed for separate metric and syntactic violations were underadditive in the combined
metric/syntactic condition, the authors argued that metric and syntactic cues interact in a later
“integrational” stage indexed by the P600.
Following such a view, as well as that of previous interpretations of prosodically-induced P600
effects (e.g., Eckstein & Friederici, 2005), it is possible that the P600 observed in the present
study reflects difficulties integrating syntactic and semantic information with incongruent pro-
sodic information. Such a view is compatible with a model of sentence comprehension in which
different information types interact in a late revision stage (cf. Gunter, Friederici, & Schriefers,
2000). Nevertheless, this interpretation alone cannot explain why incongruent compound stress
did not elicit a P600.
One plausible explanation stems from properties of the stimuli themselves: compound-congru-
ent images may create stronger predictions for upcoming items (including the compound stress
pattern) than images depicting phrases, which are less frequent, less plausible, and therefore more
difficult to predict. For instance, the image of a green-painted house can produce expectations for
either the word house or the phrase green hóuse, while the image of a glass building containing

plants may produce a more straightforward expectation for gréenhouse. Thus, integration may
have been hindered by the violation of a stronger expectation for a specific stress pattern in the case
of incongruent phrasal trials, which featured images depicting compounds.
While subjects in the present study were not explicitly instructed to attend to prosodic infor-
mation, it remains possible that the P600 reflects greater awareness of the manipulation when
compound-congruent images set the context. While late positivities in response to rhythmic/
metric incongruities are sometimes observed only when the task is explicit towards prosody,
rather than some other aspect (e.g., semantics) of the stimulus material (Magne et al., 2007;
Schmidt-Kassow & Kotz, 2009b), other P600-like components have been found in response to
such incongruities even when the task is not explicit toward rhythmic aspects of the stimuli (e.g.,
Marie et al., 2011; Schmidt-Kassow & Kotz, 2009a). Thus, in keeping with previous research
suggesting that the P600 may be attention-dependent (e.g., Coulson, King, & Kutas, 1998), the
present P600 may reflect explicit processing, while the observed slow negativity may reflect the
violation of implicit expectations. However, the behavioral results of the present study are not
straightforwardly consistent with such an interpretation: despite the presence of a P600 in
response to incongruent phrases only, subjects attained higher accuracy in incongruent com-
pound (rather than incongruent phrasal) trials. In other words, while it remains possible that the
late positivity may reflect greater awareness of the stress manipulation in the incongruent phrasal
condition, this is not reflected in the behavioral data.
4.2 Repetition effects

In the analyses of the ERP data, the factor block was included to test for potential repetition effects,
as each image appeared a second time during the second half of the experiment (though paired with
a different stress pattern). As there were no interactions between block and congruency tied to any
of the main ERP responses discussed above, we can safely conclude that these effects are not
artifacts of repetition. However, some effects of repetition were observed: analyses yielded a sig-
nificant three-way stress × congruency × block interaction during the 400–600 ms time window,
involving more negative voltages for incongruent compounds (relative to congruent compounds)
during the first block of the experiment. Consistent with this finding, the follow-up analysis of the
left hemisphere for this time window (which was warranted by the significant congruency ×
laterality interaction in the original ANOVA) yielded a significant stress × congruency × dorsality
× block interaction, due to the attenuation of the negative effect for compounds being more
pronounced at left superior electrode sites during the first half of the experiment.
That the sustained negativity attenuated across blocks is perhaps unsurprising, given the
extent to which subject expectations for particular stress patterns may have driven an effect of
congruency (which was observed in the hemispheric analyses for this time window). Despite the
counterbalancing of materials and the inclusion of filler items, stress expectancy violations may
have diminished somewhat with a second exposure to the same images and more experience
with the violation paradigm. However, the fact that congruency emerged as a main effect in the
hemispheric ANOVAs indicates that the CNV-like negativity attenuated only somewhat in
response to the repetition.
5 Conclusions
The present results demonstrate significant brain responses to the incongruent use of both com-
pound and phrasal stress, even for cases in which subjects failed to indicate (behaviorally) that the

McCauley et al. 19
stress pattern was incongruent with the visual context. This suggests that previous behavioral
findings of a preference for compounds may stem from a post-perceptual bias (as indicated by the
SDT analysis), which likely stems from the greater frequency and plausibility of the compound
items. Our findings may also serve to illuminate the role of the compound/phrasal stress distinction
in sentence processing. Both stress patterns were clearly utilized in online comprehension, as
reflected by the left-lateralized CNV-like negativity which was statistically indistinguishable
across both incongruent conditions in the 400–600 ms time window. Additional components may
reflect the greater frequency and plausibility of the compound items used in the study: images
depicting compounds may have triggered stronger (possibly explicit) expectations for a specific
stress pattern, as reflected by the P600 observed for incongruent phrases, while compound strings
themselves may have produced stronger semantic representations, as reflected by the N400
observed for incongruent compounds.
It remains to be seen whether such effects would be elicited by more naturalistic stimuli: the
repetitive nature of the sentence frame may have enabled subjects to make more precise predic-
tions about the unfolding utterance, including its meter, than would have been possible other-
wise. However, as an initial step towards exploring the perceptual salience and online processing
of compound/phrasal stress variation, the current results are illuminating and make explicit
predictions on which experimental work extending these results might be based.
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank Edith Kaan, Cyrille Magne, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments and sugges-
tions. We are also indebted to Catherine Bradley and Timothy McKinnon for help with subject recruitment.
Notes
1 In gathering enough item pairs for this study, we faced an extremely difficult task, given the rarity of
compounds in English which can also be plausibly depicted as corresponding to phrases in an image.
Ideally, the material would have been extended in order to use a Latin Square design, but the sheer rarity
of suitable material was a limiting factor. Thus, we employ each image twice (in a counterbalanced
manner, described below) and provide statistical tests for potential repetition effects.
2 Below, we report statistical analyses demonstrating that results from blocks 1 and 2 are consistent with
those of blocks 3 and 4.
3 We chose to time-lock EEG to the onset of the critical item for both compounds and phrases. Work by
Friedrich et al. (2001) indicates that pitch contours are differentiated within the first syllable.
4 While average reference is well suited to high-density EEG, a great deal of language research uses an
averaged mastoids reference. For this reason, we provide images of the data (three of the same chan-
nels shown in the results section) after re-reference to averaged mastoids, for comparison, in an online
supplement: http://las.sagepub.com/content/56/2/xxx/suppl/DC1.
5 As the filler trials were included solely to mask the nature of the manipulation and gauge subject
attentiveness to the task, we excluded them from our analysis of the electrophysiological data.
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Appendix A: Target stimulus items (as phrases)

big birds*, big top, black belt, black board, black top, blue jay, cold sore, copper head, dark room,
fat cat, flat bed, gold fish, green house, heavy weight, high chair, high light, high school, hot cake,
hot dog, hot rod, lady bug, lazy boy, light house, mad man, orange tree, paper boys, paper weight,
red coat, red head, red wood, rose buds, silk worm, sky light, soft ball, star light, tight rope, top hat,
toy store, upper cut, white board, white cap, white house, yellow jacket, yellow pages
* multiple instances of the Sesame Street character, “Big Bird,” were depicted in the image corre-
sponding to the compound.
Appendix B: Example trials

Congruent phrasal trial – 3 s familiarization to the image of a green-painted house, after which
the auditory stimulus is presented: “This is the green hóuse.”
Incongruent phrasal trial – 3 s familiarization to the image of a blackboard (chalkboard), after
which the auditory stimulus is presented: “This is the black bóard.”
Congruent compound trial – 3 s familiarization to the image of a lighthouse, after which the
auditory stimulus is presented: “This is the líghthouse.”
Incongruent compound trial – 3 s familiarization to the image of an orange-colored tree, after
which the auditory stimulus is presented: “This is the órange tree.”
Appendix C: Filler items

Compounds: bathtub, classroom, fishbowl, birdhouse, jumprope, bookcase, carseat, cupcake,
toothbrush, snowflake, doorknob, teapot, footprint, raincoat, sailboat, schoolbus, stopsign,
tablecloth, mousehole, snowman, lampshade, bedroom, flowerpot, horseshoe, hairbrush, rain-
bow, candycane, cellphone, teddybear, pencilcase
Phrases: full tub, empty room, big fish, purple bird, blue rope, thick book, old car, tall cake, dark
tooth, deep snow, round door, shiny pot, wet foot, green coat, large boat, green bus, striped sign,
square table, pink mouse, tall man, thin lamp, big bed, red flower, brown shoe, curly hair, heavy
rain, long candy, old phone, sleeping bear, yellow pencil

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