Stress Still Affects Articulatory Planning in Reading Aloud: A Reply to White and Besner (2016)

In their comment, White and Besner (2016) argued against our conclusion that stress assignment may affect polysyllable pseudoword reading and concluded that, currently, we do not know whether the effect of stress position is solid and reliable. White and Besner stated that because the experiments reported in Sulpizio, Spinelli, and Burani (2015) have methodological problems, our conclusion is grounded on weak evidence. In this reply, we present further analyses of our data that overcome the methodological weakness highlighted by White and Besner. The results of these new analyses consistently mirror those reported by Sulpizio and colleagues (2015) and speak in favor of the view that, in reading Italian pseudowords aloud, stress assignment affects articulatory planning of the stimulus.