Tip-of-the-tongue States Research Articles

Competition accumulates in successive retrieval of proper names.

Proper names are especially prone to retrieval failures and tip-of-the-tongue states (TOTs)-a phenomenon wherein a person has a strong feeling of knowing a word but cannot retrieve it. Current research provides mixed evidence regarding whether related names facilitate or compete with target-name retrieval. We examined this question in two experiments using a novel paradigm where participants either read a prime name aloud (Experiment 1) or classified a written prime name as famous or non-famous (Experiment 2) prior to naming a celebrity picture. Successful retrievals decreased with increasing trial number (and was dependent on the number of previously presented similar famous people) in both experiments, revealing a form of accumulating interference between multiple famous names. However, trial number had no effect on TOTs, and within each trial famous prime names increased TOTs only in Experiment 2. These results can be explained within a framework that assumes competition for selection at the point of lexical retrieval, such that successful retrievals decrease after successive retrievals of proper names of depicted faces of semantically similar people. By contrast, the effects of written prime words only occur when prime names are sufficiently processed, and do not provide evidence for competition but may reflect improved retrieval relative to a "don't know" response.

THE INFLUENCE OF WORD STRESS ON EFL LEARNERS' ToT STATE

Tip of the Tongue (ToT) is a condition that hinders the production of fluency in speech. This study aims to identify stress patterns and factors that influence the emergence of ToT states. This research used a quantitative approach with the basis of ToT analysis theory from Brown and McNeill. For collecting data, it used an experimental design with EFL students in Kampung Inggris Pare as the objects by involving total 15 participants aged from 18th to 21st years old or late teens. The results show that the language features appearing from the experiment including words (65%), first syllables (24%), last syllables (3%), and letters (6%). The first syllable shows 21% occurrences more than that of the last syllable. There is no identification of stress in the completion of ToT in terms of the appearance of the dominating first syllable. It means that stress does not affect the completion of the ToT, but the frequency of syllables. The other factors that affect ToT in EFL include the mental processes of EFL learners, the sound imitations towards direct communication, and the teacher's role in teaching pronunciation.

On the relationship between tip-of-the-tongue states and partial recollective experience: Illusory partial recollective access during tip-of-the-tongue states.

Most people have experienced the sensation of having a word on the tip of the tongue. A common assumption is that a major driving force underlying the tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state is conscious partial recollective access to some of the unretrieved word's attributes, such as its first letter. In the present study, under free-report conditions, participants provided more partial recollection responses during TOTs than non-TOTs without being more accurate among their provided responses. Under forced-guessing conditions in which participants needed to guess at the unidentified target word's first letter, participants exhibited false partial recollective experience during TOTs. This was shown by a strong tendency during TOTs to indicate that they knew the first letter, when in actuality, they were wrong in their first-letter guess. An additional experiment showed illusory partial recollection of a contextual detail during TOTs relative to non-TOTs. The full pattern of results portrays an alternative possible theoretical relationship between TOT states and subjective partial recollective experience. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Alpha Suppression Is Associated with the Tip-of-the-Tongue (TOT) State Whereas Alpha Expression Is Associated with Knowing That One Does Not Know.

The tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state is a spontaneously occurring metacognitive state that indicates that the answer to a query is almost, but not quite, at hand, i.e., that resolution is imminent. Since the time of William James, a distinctive feeling of nagging frustration has been observed to be associated with TOT states. On a more positive note, TOT states are also associated with intense goal-directed curiosity and with a strong desire to know that translates into successful mental action. The present study showed that prior to the presentation of resolving feedback to verbal queries-if the individual was in a TOT state-alpha suppression was in evidence in the EEG. This alpha suppression appears to be a marker of a spontaneously occurring, conscious, and highly motivating goal-directed internal metacognitive state. At the same time, alpha expression in the same time period was associated with the feeling of not knowing, indicating a more discursive state. Both alpha and alpha suppression were observed broadly across centro-parietal scalp electrodes and disappeared immediately upon presentation of the resolving feedback. Analyses indicated that the occurrence of alpha suppression was associated with participants' verbal affirmations of being in a TOT state, which is also related to subsequent expression of a late positivity when feedback is provided, and to enhanced memory.

EFEKTIVITAS SEMANTIK PRIMING DALAM ATASI FENOMENA TIP OF THE TONGUE

The obstacle in accessing words that have been stored in memory is called the Tip of the Tongue phenomenon (ToT). This study aimed to measure the effectiveness of semantic priming techniques and sub lexicon codes in facilitating the process of accessing the lexicon when the subjects are in ToT state. This research is a qualitative descriptive study where the researcher conducted an experiment with a psycholinguistic analysis approach. The data are in the form of target words, prime words, and the success rate of the subject in recalling words. The data were obtained from the experiments, interviews, and observations involving 8 students at the tertiary level with an age range of 18-22 years. The results showed that the effectiveness rate of semantic priming in the process of accessing the lexicon is 67,6%, onset 8,9%, first syllable 23,5%. In addition, there were also factors that influenced the subjects' success in recalling words, such as age, character and intelligence, subject selective processes, inhibiting words, health and word acquisition processes. To conclude, priming associative semantics was quite effective in helping the subject recall words when the subject in the Tip of the Tongue State.

Socially Shared Feelings of Imminent Recall: More Tip-of-the-Tongue States Are Experienced in Small Groups.

Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states are typically defined as feelings of imminent recall for known, but temporarily inaccessible target words. However, TOTs are not merely instances of retrieval failures. Clues that increase the subjective likelihood of retrieval success, such as cue familiarity and target-related information, also have been shown to elicit feelings of imminent recall, supporting a metacognitive, inferential etiology of the TOT phenomenon. A survey conducted on our university campus provided anecdotal evidence that TOTs are occasionally shared among people in small groups. Although shared TOTs may suggest the influence of social contagion, we hypothesized that metacognitive appraisal of group recall efficiency could be involved. There should be more instances of remembering in several heads than in one. From this, we conjectured that people remembering together entertain the inference that successful retrieval is more likely in group recall than in a single-person recall situation. Such a metacognitive appraisal may drive a stronger feeling of closeness with the target word and of recall imminence, precipitating one (or more people) into a TOT state. We used general knowledge questions to elicit TOTs. We found that participants reported more TOTs when remembering in small groups than participants remembering alone. Critically, the experimental manipulation selectively increased TOTs without affecting correct recall, suggesting that additional TOTs observed in small groups were triggered independently from the retrieval process. Near one third (31%) of the TOTs in small groups were reported by two or more participants for the same items. However, removing common TOTs from the analyses did not change the basic pattern of results, suggesting that social contagion was not the main factor involved in the observed effect. We argue that beyond social contagion, group recall magnifies the inference that target words will be successfully retrieved, prompting the metacognitive monitoring system to launch more near-retrieval success “warning” (TOT) signals than in a single-person recall situation.

Increased pupil dilation during tip-of-the-tongue states

Tip-of-the-tongue states (TOTs) are feelings of impending word retrieval success during a current failure to retrieve a target word. Though much is known and understood about TOT states from decades of research, research on potential psychophysiological correlates of the TOT state is still in its infancy, and existing studies point toward the involvement of neural processes that are associated with enhanced attention, motivation, and information-seeking. In the present study, we demonstrate that, during instances of target retrieval failure, TOT states are associated with greater pupillary dilation (i.e., autonomic arousal) in 91% of our sample. This is the first study to demonstrate a pupillometric correlate of the TOT experience, and this finding provides an important step toward understanding emotional attributes associated with TOT states. Mean pupil dilation also increased such that instances of target identification failure that were unaccompanied by TOT states < instances in which TOTs occurred < instances of target identification success. It is possible that TOTs reflect an intermediary state between complete target retrieval failure and full target retrieval.

Eye blink suppression and occurrence during TOT (Tip of the Tongue) states

Eye blink suppression and occurrence during TOT (Tip of the Tongue) states

The tip-of-the-tongue state bias permeates unrelated concurrent decisions and behavior.

The tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state-the feeling of being near accessing an as yet inaccessible word from memory-is associated with cognitive bias. For example, prior work has shown that TOTs are associated with a bias toward inferring positive qualities of the unretrieved information. People are biased during TOTs to indicate that the unretrieved target has a greater likelihood of being positively valenced and to have been associated with a higher value number earlier in the experiment. Additionally, when the TOT is for a pictured person's name, that person is judged to be more likely to be ethical. The present study demonstrates that the TOT positivity bias extends to unrelated concurrent decisions and behavior. In Experiment 1, participants reported a greater inclination to take an unrelated gamble during TOTs than non-TOTs. Experiment 2 demonstrated the concurrent nature of this spillover effect. The TOT bias toward a greater inclination to gamble significantly diminished with a 10-second delay between the time of reporting the TOT state and the time to report the inclination. Finally, Experiment 3 showed that the increased inclination to want to take a gamble during TOTs translated to actual gambling behavior. Participants chose to gamble for points more often during TOTs than non-TOTs.

The biasing nature of the tip-of-the-tongue experience: When decisions bask in the glow of the tip-of-the-tongue state.

The present study demonstrates a counterintuitive pattern regarding the affective nature of the tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon (when a currently inaccessible word feels right on the verge of retrieval). First, TOT reports were more likely for questions corresponding to positively valenced than negatively valenced targets. Second, TOT states were associated with a bias toward inferring positive characteristics regarding the unretrieved information. During TOT states, participants inferred a greater likelihood that the unretrieved target was positively valenced (Experiment 1), that it was earlier presented with a higher value number (Experiment 2), and that a pictured celebrity whose name was unretrieved was ethical (Experiment 3). The association between TOTs and positive affect, including the positivity bias during TOTs, is analogous to the "warm glow" phenomenon shown with familiarity. Like familiarity, TOT states may be associated with a warm glow feeling. This warm glow feeling, in turn, may lead to a positivity bias regarding the unretrieved information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Phonological Interlopers Tend to Repeat When Tip-of-the-Tongue States Repeat.

We elicited tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states to replicate the finding that TOTs repeat for individual words. Humphreys and colleagues have attributed this error repetition phenomenon to implicit learning of the mappings between the lemma and phonology. We also examined whether or not interlopers – repeated information that persistently comes to mind – repeat during TOT states for individual words, along with the type of interlopers. Participants were given a TOT test and the same TOT test one week later. The test consisted of the presentation of a definition and participants indicated if they knew the word, did not know the word, or if they were in a TOT state. Participants were also given 15 s to think aloud about the target word on both test and retest. We found that information repeats significantly more often for repeated TOT states (26%) than repeated Don’t Know states (13%). We also found that participants experienced significantly more repeated phonological interlopers during a repeated TOT state (59%) versus a repeated Don’t Know state (12%). Theoretically, the results may suggest that the TOT state is best described as a subthreshold state, and that within this subthreshold state there is a specific erroneous pattern of activation (akin to a local minimum) rather than a non-specific pattern of activation. These findings are an important constraint toward the development of a more formal explanation of recurring TOTs.

Neither Cue Familiarity nor Semantic Cues Increase the Likelihood of Repeating a Tip-of-the-Tongue State

Psycholinguistic and metacognition researchers mostly disagree on what constitutes a tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state. Psycholinguists argue that TOT states occur when there is a transmission of activation failure between the lemma and phonology levels of word production (e.g., Burke, MacKay, Worthley, &amp; Wade, 1991). Metacognition researchers argue that the TOT state is better described as a subjective experience caused by a mechanism that assesses the likelihood of recall from memory. One sub-hypothesis of the metacognitive account of TOT states is the cue familiarity hypothesis, which suggests that a TOT state may occur when cues elicit a feeling of familiarity (Metcalfe, Schwartz, &amp; Joaquim, 1993). We conducted three experiments to evaluate the cue familiarity hypothesis of TOT state etiology. Experiment 1 included a test-retest TOT task with identical definitions (i.e., cues that should elicit familiarity) versus alternative definitions. TOTs were as likely to repeat for alternative definitions across test and retest as identical definitions, which is inconsistent with the cue familiarity hypothesis. Experiment 2 included the same task layout as Experiment 1, but we used very different cues (pictures versus descriptions for famous people). Again, we found that TOTs tended to repeat regardless of whether or not prompts were identical. In Experiment 3, we presented either a picture and description simultaneously or a description only on the first test, followed by a description only on retest. We found that giving participants an extra semantic cue did not change the probability of repeating a TOT state. These findings suggest that repeated TOT states do not occur due to cue familiarity nor is the locus of the TOT state at the semantic level of the word production/word recall system. Therefore, we argue that the results point towards a success of lemma access, but then failure of the lemma-to-phonology mappings.

Tip-of-the-tongue states predict enhanced feedback processing and subsequent memory.

This article investigates the relations among the tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state, event related potentials (ERPs) to correct feedback to questions, and subsequent memory. ERPs were used to investigate neurocognitive responses to feedback to general information questions for which participants had expressed either being or not being in a TOT state. For questions in which participants were unable to answer within 3 s, they indicated whether they were experiencing a TOT state and then were immediately provided with the correct answer. Feedback during a TOT state, as opposed to not knowing the answer, was associated with enhanced positivity over centro-parietal electrodes 250-700 ms post-feedback, and this enhanced positivity mediated a positive relationship between TOTs and later recall. Although effects of increased semantic access during TOT states cannot be ruled out, these results suggest that information received during TOT states elicits enhanced processing-suggestive of curiosity-leading to enhanced learning of studied material.

Exploring the nature of phonological weakness in low-proficiency second language learners

Low-proficiency second language (L2) learners have a weakness in native language (L1) phonological processing. The hypothesis that this weakness stems from deficient phonological access was tested using a tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) experimental paradigm with implicit phonological priming. Phonological priming may facilitate the accessibility of phonological representations, thus temporarily cancelling out the deficiency and increasing the resolution of TOT naming failures. Twenty low-proficiency and 22 high-proficiency L2 learners were asked to name objects in their L1. They could correctly name the target, do not know the target word, or report being in a TOT state. On some of the latter trials, they were primed with a pseudoword phonologically related to the target. Phonological priming increased TOT states resolution in high-proficiency but not low-proficiency learners. No priming effects were observed when participants did not know the target word. Thus, our results do not provide evidence linking low L2 proficiency with deficient phonological access.

Rising to the bilingual challenge: self-reported experiences of managing life with two languages

ABSTRACTA recent surge of findings on bilingual cognitive advantage has attracted attention from both researchers and the media. An advantage has been demonstrated with regard to, inter alia, inhibiting, switching, monitoring and updating. However, Paap et al. argue that the advantage does not exist or is only limited to executive functioning. Both sides of the debate are well grounded in research. Nevertheless, what seems to be missing from the current discussion is the voice of bilingual speakers, that is , how they manage life with two languages and if they perceive any cognitive, social or economic advantages or indeed, disadvantages of knowing two languages more than one language. Here, I report on an extensive questionnaire in which German–English participants reflected upon their use of languages and the particular benefits as well as the challenges they face. Constructs, such as inhibition, retrieval of words language mixing were explored. It has been elicited that all participants considered knowledge of two languages to be highly advantageous despite encountering occasional problems in the form of: tip of the tongue states, code switching or relying on literal translation. In general, all participants agreed that the positive aspects of being bilingual greatly outweigh the negatives.

Subjective ratings of masker disturbance during the perception of native and non-native speech.

Collections of various types of speech errors have increased our understanding of the acquisition, production, and perception of language. Although such collections of naturally occurring language errors are invaluable for a number of reasons, the process of collecting various types of speech errors presents many challenges to the researcher interested in building such a collection, among them a significant investment of time and effort to obtain a sufficient number of examples to enable statistical analysis. Here we describe a freely accessible website http://spedi.ku.edu that helps users document slips of the tongue, slips of the ear, and tip of the tongue states that they experience firsthand or observe in others. The documented errors are amassed, and made available for other users to analyze, thereby distributing the time and effort involved in collecting errors across a large number of individuals instead of saddling the lone researcher, and facilitating distribution of the collection to other researchers. This approach also addresses some issues related to data curation that hampered previous error collections, and enables the collection to continue to grow over a longer period of time than previous collections. Finally, this web-based tool creates an opportunity for language scientists to engage in outreach efforts to increase the understanding of language disorders and research in the general public.

First learned words are not forgotten: Age-of-acquisition effects in the tip-of-the-tongue experience.

A large body of evidence indicates that the age at which a word is acquired predicts the time required to retrieve that word during speech production. Here we explored whether age of acquisition also predicts the experience of being unable to produce a known word at a particular moment. Italian speakers named a sequence of pictures in Experiment 1 or retrieved a word as a response to a definition in Experiment 2. In both experiments, the participants were instructed to indicate when they were in a tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state. Generalized mixed-effects models performed on the TOT and correct responses revealed that word frequency and age of acquisition predicted the TOT states. Specifically, low-frequency words elicited more TOTs than did high-frequency words, replicating previous findings. In addition, late-acquired words elicited more TOTs than did early-acquired words. Further analyses revealed that the age of acquisition was a better predictor of TOTs than was word frequency. The effects of age of acquisition were similar with subjective and objective measures of age of acquisition, and persisted when several psycholinguistic variables were taken into consideration as predictors in the generalized mixed-effects models. We explained these results in terms of weaker semantic-to-phonological connections in the speech production system for late-acquired words.

The tip-of-the-tongue heuristic: How tip-of-the-tongue states confer perceptibility on inaccessible words.

This study shows that the presence of a tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state--the sense that a word is in memory when its retrieval fails--is used as a heuristic for inferring that an inaccessible word has characteristics that are consistent with greater word perceptibility. When reporting a TOT state, people judged an unretrieved word as more likely to have previously appeared darker and clearer (Experiment 1a), and larger (Experiment 1b). They also judged an unretrieved word as more likely to be a high frequency word (Experiment 2). This was not because greater fluency or word perceptibility at encoding led to later TOT states: Increased fluency or perceptibility of a word at encoding did not increase the likelihood of a TOT state for it when its retrieval later failed; moreover, the TOT state was not diagnostic of an unretrieved word's fluency or perceptibility when it was last seen. Results instead suggest that TOT states themselves are used as a heuristic for inferring the likely characteristics of unretrieved words. During the uncertainty of retrieval failure, TOT states are a source of information on which people rely in reasoning about the likely characteristics of the unretrieved information, choosing characteristics that are consistent with greater fluency of processing.

Subjective states associated with retrieval failures in Parkinson’s disease

Instances in which we cannot retrieve information immediately but know that the information might be retrieved later are subjective states that accompany retrieval failure. These are expressed in feeling-of-knowing (FOK) and Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) experiences. In Experiment 1, participants with Parkinson's disease (PD) and older adult controls were given general questions and asked to report when they experienced a TOT state and to give related information about the missing word. The PD group experienced similar levels of TOTs but provided less correct peripheral information related to the target when in a TOT state. In Experiment 2, participants were given a Semantic (general knowledge questions) and an Episodic (word pairs) FOK task. PD patients failed to accurately predict their future memory performance (FOK) in response to both episodic and semantic cues. Results are interpreted in the context of recent frameworks of memory and metacognition.

Syllabic pseudohomophone priming in tip-of-the-tongue states resolution: The role of syllabic position and number of syllables

The tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state is a common experience, usually coupled with a frustrating feeling caused by the incapability of retrieving a familiar word. It is thought that TOTs occur when the semantic and syntactic information of the word is retrieved but not its phonology. This study aims to further understand the role of phonology in TOT resolution. Specifically, using a syllabic pseudohomophone priming paradigm, we aim to analyse the role of the phonological syllabic position (first vs. last) and the number of syllables in TOT states resolution. TOT was elicited by a picture naming task, after which a lexical decision task was presented. Here, first, last, or none of the phonological syllables of the target word were embedded in pseudohomophone primes. Results showed a significant syllabic pseudohomophone priming effect facilitating TOT resolution. The effect was stronger for four-syllable words, especially when the last syllable was used as prime. These results seem to reinforce the importance of phonology in TOT states resolution, particularly the role of the syllable as an important sublexical unit in speech processing.