Tip of the tongue

The tip of the tongue phenomenon ( TOT phenomenon also ( tip- of-the -tongue ) called ) refers to a condition in which an actually known word at a certain time in the mental lexicon is not or only partially available.

Definition

If a person can not play a word, although she is convinced to actually know it, the TOT phenomenon and thus the word-finding search occurs. Often the condition is accompanied by the frustrating feeling that the term is in mental " tangible " proximity, so to speak, " is on the tip of the tongue ". The colloquial metaphor is used not only in Germany. A survey showed that in at least 44 other languages ​​an almost identical expression is used:

  • English: "on the tip of the tongue "
  • French: " sur le bout de la langue " (also: " J'ai un trou dans la tête " - I have a hole in my head)
  • Spanish: "en la punta de la lengua "
  • Italian: " sulla punta della lingua "

It is a universal, occurring also in other linguistic areas phenomenon. The term " the TOT phenomenon " or simply " TOT " has therefore established itself in scientific work.

Occurrence and frequency of TOT phenomenon

The tip of the tongue phenomenon, similar slip of the tongue, not attributed to organic or health causes. Most people experience at least one TOT per week, so it is not an exceptional, but rather an everyday occurrence. Normally, the memory of the word searched for shorter or longer periods reenters or finding is facilitated by keyword and context. TOTs are also readily induce experimentally and are therefore well suited for scientific studies. Researchers psycholinguistics use the phenomenon to study the structure of the mental lexicon and the associated research of speech production processes.

The word identification process in the TOT state

Brown / McNeill investigated in 1966 for the first time the tip of the tongue phenomenon. They confronted subjects with definitions difficult or rarely used words (such as nepotism / cronyism ). When the test subjects the desired target word could not name immediately, they were in the TOT state and were asked to complete a questionnaire. The subjects were able to make information about:

  • Words of similar meaning or the like sound
  • The number of syllables
  • The initials

Brown / McNeill came to the conclusion that in about half the cases the first letter and number of syllables were correctly named. Both words with similar phonological and semantic with similar properties were produced. A division of the mental lexicon in a semantic and a phonological level can not be excluded. Studies in other languages ​​were able to show that subjects were also able to specify the grammatical gender, the part of speech and the products of the target word.

Depending on age and frequency

Based on the results of Brown / McNeill, studied Burke et al. (1991) the occurrence of the phenomenon TOT as a function of the factors of age, frequency and time spacing to the last use of proper names, objects and abstract words. They cite in their study on the Node Structure Theory, one of the interactive activation models. It says that information is stored in the mental lexicon in a network of interacting nodes that need to be activated again ( priming ) before you can access the information. DEAD state in which connections between the nodes are weakened, and an access is not possible. For example, the word have been activated at the semantic level, the connection to the phonological level, however, is interrupted, and there can be no designation of the search word. However, where a phonological priming using similar sounding words instead, can reduce the number of TOTs.

Moreover, it was confirmed that older people often experience TOTs. You may be particularly bad remember proper names and specify a total of fewer partial information about the target words. The connections between the nodes is also weakened if the word was not accessed for some time or is generally only used very rarely.

Language production Priming (psychology)
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