Implicit Learning of Lexical Stress Patterns

The possibility of implicit learning (i.e. learning without intention or awareness) of prosodic features has been little investigated, despite a great deal of studies in other areas of language. We tested whether a lexical stress pattern could be implicitly learned after short exposure. We found that English-speaking subjects showed learning of the Spanish-based lexical stress patterns from the exposure phase. The response patterns support a model in which both abstract rules and probabilistic information were learned.