The strong, the weak, and the first: The impact of phonological stress on processing of orthographic errors in silent reading

Examined whether phonological stress impacts orthographic misspelling processing during silent reading. 20 native German speakers (mean age 23 years) performed a lexical-decision task while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. Subjects read sequences of trochaic or iambic disyllabic words with orthographic misspellings introduced by changing the onset consonant of the first or second syllable. Results present strong support for the activation of word stress in silent reading and its influence on the processing of misspellings as reflected in the selective modulation of the N400-like component and the P600 by misspellings in stressed syllables. This was particularly the case when misspelling occurred in the middle of the word, whereas effects of stress were eliminated when misspellings occurred in the more salient word-initial position.