| DOMINIC W. MASSARO, editor
University of California, Santa Cruz
Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomena: Gold Mine or Can
of Worms?
Tip-of-the-Tongue States: Phenomenology,
Mechanism, and Lexical Retrieval
By Bennett L. Schwartz. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2002. x +
181 pp. Cloth, $39.95.
Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomena have proven a gold mine
for theories of memory retrieval and midlevel (lexical
and phonological) language production and have provided
important insights into relationships between language and
memory (see especially MacKay & Abrams, 1996). TOT states
also carry practical significance because they require
theories of memory and language to address phenomena commonly
observed in everyday life. Speakers in the TOT state
are temporarily unable to retrieve the full phonology for
a word that they know and have successfully retrieved many
times. They often feel that they will soon recall the
sought-for word and can usually recognize it if presented
to them. They invariably retrieve the word°s meaning
and can often retrieve its syntactic category, its stress
pattern and number of syllables, its initial sound or
letter, and its gender in languages such as Italian (e.g.,
Brown & McNeill, 1966; Burke, MacKay, Worthley & Wade,
1991; Miozzo & Caramazza, 1997; Vigliocco, Antonini, &
Garrett, 1997). Alternate words that resemble the target
in syntax, meaning, and phonology often come repeatedly
and involuntarily to mind, even though the speaker rejects
these "persistent alternates" as inappropriate.
However, persistent alternates decrease with aging even
though young adults experience fewer TOTs than older adults
and can accurately report more phonological characteristics
of the target word (e.g., Burke et al., 1991; Brown
& Nix, 1996; Heine, Ober, & Shenaut, 1999; Maylor, 1990).
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