The beat goes on: the effect of rhythm on reading aloud

The central aim of this experiment was to explore the connection between rhythm and reading processes by examining whether reading aloud is affected by the presentation of a rhythmic prime that was either congruent or incongruent with the syllabic stress of the target letter string. The targets were words that placed the stress on either the first or second syllable (practice vs. police), as well as their corresponding pseudohomophones (PHs) (praktis vs. poleese). The results demonstrated that naming reaction times were faster for PHs when the rhythmic prime was congruent with the syllabic stress, and slower when the rhythmic prime was incongruent. These results are taken to suggest that PHs showed a larger effect given that they must be phonetically decoded. The congruency by stimulus type interaction suggests that their effects reflect at least one common stage of processing, namely grapheme to phoneme translation. In general, these results indicate that a rhythmic prime matched to the syllabic stress of a letter string that requires phonetic decoding aids sublexical reading processes, which has important implications for allowing models of reading to account for rhythm processes. The current paradigm may also reveal potential remedial applications for treating speech deficits in patient populations, such as Parkinson's disease, stuttering, aphasia, and dyslexia.