Evaluating Different Rating Scales for Obtaining Judgments of Syllable Prominence from Naïve Listeners

Streefkerk [6] defines prominence as the perceptually outstanding parts in spoken language. An optimal rating scale for syllable prominence has not been found yet. This paper evaluates a 4point, an 11-point, a 31-point, and a continuous scale for the rating of syllable prominence and gives support for scales using a higher number of levels. Priming effects found by Arnold, et al. [1], could only be replicated using the 31-point scale.