Tip-of-the-Tongue States and Related Phenomena

When the memory retrieval process breaks down, people wonder exactly why and how such a thing occurs. In many cases, failed retrieval is accompanied by a 'tip-of-the-tongue state', a feeling that an unretrieved item is stored in memory. Tip-of-the-tongue states stand at the crossroads of several research traditions within cognitive science. Some research focuses on the nature of the retrieval failure. Other research tries to determine what tip-of-the-tongue states can tell us about the organization of lexical memory - what aspects of a word we can recall when we are otherwise unable to do so. Still other research focuses on the nature of the experience. Each perspective is represented in this book, which presents the best theoretical and empirical work on these subjects. Much of the work is cross-disciplinary, but the topics concern strong phenomenological states of knowing that are not accompanied by recall or recognition of the desired information.

Table of Contents:
1. Why tip-of-the-tongue states are important Alan S. Brown and Bennett L. Schwartz; 2. Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states: mechanisms and metacognitive control Bennett L. Schwartz and Janet Metcalfe; 3. There it is again on my tongue: tracking repeat TOTs Alan S. Brown and Katie Croft Caderao; 4. Retrieval failures for the names of familiar people J. Richard Hanley; 5. The effect of tip-of-the-tongue states on other cognitive judgments Anne M. Cleary, Shelly R. Staley and Kimberly R. Klein; 6. Why the journey to a word takes you no closer Trevor A. Harley; 7. Tip-of-the-tongue in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) Onésimo Juncos-Rabadán, David Facal and Arturo X. Pereiro; 8. Metamemory and Parkinson's disease Justin D. Oh-Lee and Hajime Otani; 9. Psychopharmacological approach of the metamemory and TOT phenomenon Marie Izaute and Elisabeth Bacon; 10. Neurofunctional correlates of the tip-of-the-tongue state Fernando Díaz, Mónica Lindĺn, Santiago Galdo-Alvarez and Ana Buján; 11. The blank in the mind experience: another manifestation of tip-of-the-tongue state or something else? Anastasia Efklides; 12. On the empirical study of déjà vu: borrowing methodology from the study of the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon Anne M. Cleary; 13. Déjà vu in older adults Chris J. A. Moulin, Celine Souchay, Sarah Buchanan, Rosemary Bradley, Dilay Zeynep Karadoller and Melisa Akan; 14. Odor knowledge, odor naming, and the 'tip-of-the-nose' experience Frederik U. Jönsson and Richard J. Stevenson; 15. What do we know when we forget? Asher Koriat and Ravit Nussinson.

About the Author :
Bennett Schwartz is Professor of Psychology and Fellow of the Honors College at Florida International University. He received his PhD in cognitive psychology from Dartmouth College in 1993. He is the author of more than fifty publications, including journal articles, book chapters, edited books, and textbooks. He has published papers on animal memory, the language of thought, and adaptation and memory, but has worked most consistently on the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon and issues of metacognition. He is on the editorial board of several journals, including the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition and Animal Cognition. lan Brown is a Professor in the Psychology Department in Dedman College at Southern Methodist University, Texas. He received his BA from the College of Wooster, and his PhD in human memory from Northwestern University, Illinois in 1974. Dr Brown has published more than seventy professional articles, as well as six books, on basic and applied areas of human memory and cognition. His primary interest is on investigating different varieties of memory dysfunction, such as the tip-of-the-tongue experience, déjà vu, inadvertent plagiarism, and retrieval interference. He has refereed journal articles submitted to more than thirty journals, and currently serves as consulting editor for Memory and Cognition.