title: The role of target word stress in auditory comprehension by aphasic listeners.
abstract: The present investigation was designed to determine the influence of stressed word prosody on auditory comprehension by listeners with aphasia. Paragraph-length narratives were computer-edited to yield two conditions. In one condition, both the target words and the surrounding context were prosodically neutral; in the second condition, target words were stressed and the surrounding contexts were prosodically neutral. The paragraph-length stimuli were presented to 10 aphasic listeners and their comprehension was tested. Analysis revealed that prosodic information carried only by stressed target words, within paragraph-length stimuli, did not provide significant comprehension benefits to aphasic listeners. The comprehension improvement typically observed when paragraph-length narratives are stressed is, therefore, most likely due to prosodic cues that precede stress-bearing target words.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Disorders, Louisiana State University Medical Center.
authors.forename: M D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Kimelman
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001037:Aphasia; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013060:Speech; D013067:Speech Perception