Comparing Auditory vs Visual Stimuli in the Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon

2002 ◽  
Vol 90 (2) ◽  
pp. 568-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Riefer
Keyword(s):  
Incidence Rate ◽  
Partial Information ◽  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Response Set ◽  
Auditory Cue ◽  
Cue Familiarity ◽  
Alternative Responses ◽  
Tip Of The Tongue

An experiment is reported comparing the effectiveness of auditory and visual stimuli in eliciting the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. 30 participants were asked to name the tides of 27 television shows. Half of the participants were given segments of the theme song for each show (auditory cue), and half were shown the cast photographs for each show (visual cue). Participants were asked to report whenever they experienced the tip-of-the-tongue state. There were no significant differences between the auditory and visual stimuli in terms of the incidence rate for the tip-of-the-tongue state, the amount of partial information that participants provided in their responses, or the frequency of interlopers (alternative responses that persistently come to mind). These findings suggest that the characteristics of the tip-of-the-tongue state are determined more by the nature of the response set than by the type of stimuli used as cues. The results are inconsistent with inferential theories of the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, such as the cue familiarity hypothesis and, instead, tend to support direct-access hypotheses.

Name That Tune: Eliciting the Tip-of-the-Tongue Experience Using Auditory Stimuli

1995 ◽  
Vol 77 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1379-1390 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Reefer ◽  
Mary K. Kevari ◽  
Daniel L. F. Kramer
Keyword(s):  
Recognition Test ◽  
Partial Information ◽  
High Accuracy ◽  
Auditory Stimuli ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Tip Of The Tongue ◽  
Competing Responses

An experiment was conducted to assess whether auditory stimuli could elicit the tip-of-the-tongue state. Subjects were presented segments of 50 television theme songs and asked to indicate the tide of the corresponding show. Twenty-one percent of ail retrieval attempts resulted in an experience of the tip-of-the-tongue state, with women reporting more such experiences than men. The majority of these experiences contained partial information about the target such as the show's characters, actors, or outline. Subjects in the tip-of-the-tongue state were also able to identify the genre and era of the target show with high accuracy and pick it out amongst distractors in a recognition test. Competing responses were relatively infrequent and were usually semantically related to the target show. The similarities and differences between auditory-induced tip-of-the-tongue states and those for other stimuli are discussed.

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

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luc Rousseau ◽  
Nathalie Kashur
Keyword(s):  
Small Groups ◽  
Correct Recall ◽  
Experimental Manipulation ◽  
Social Contagion ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Single Person ◽  
Cue Familiarity ◽  
Tip Of The Tongue ◽  
Target Words ◽  
Group Recall

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.

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

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Kathleen Oliver ◽  
Timmie Li ◽  
Jonathan J. Harley ◽  
Karin R. Humphreys
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Word Production ◽  
Word Recall ◽  
Semantic Level ◽  
Semantic Cues ◽  
Famous People ◽  
Cue Familiarity ◽  
Recall System ◽  
Tip Of The Tongue

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, & 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, & 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 in Hebrew–English bilinguals

2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamar H. Gollan ◽  
Nina B. Silverberg
Keyword(s):  
Word Frequency ◽  
Lexical Access ◽  
Correct Response ◽  
Partial Information ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Spontaneous Resolution ◽  
Tip Of The Tongue ◽  
Target Words

Tip-of-the-tongue states (TOTs) in proficient Hebrew–English bilinguals were compared to those of age-matched monolinguals. Monolinguals retrieved words in English, and bilinguals retrieved words from both languages. Results showed an increased TOT rate in bilinguals. However, bilinguals demonstrated comparable rates of spontaneous resolution, and similar ability to access partial information about target words. Interestingly, bilinguals named the same number of targets as monolinguals when naming an item in either language was counted as a correct response. Besides bilingualism, other factors that predicted TOT rate included word frequency (only for bilinguals), and age (younger participants had more TOTs). Unexpectedly, TOTs for Hebrew targets were not characterized by increased access to grammatical gender and number of syllables relative to control states, thus contrasting notably with TOTs for Italian and English targets respectively. We discuss these results in terms of their relevance for constraining models of bilingual lexical access and models of TOT.

Audiology Service Models in a Family Physician Practice Setting

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sridhar Krishnamurti
Keyword(s):  
Pediatric Patients ◽  
Practice Patterns ◽  
Healthcare Delivery ◽  
Direct Consequence ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Practice Setting ◽  
Pediatric Populations ◽  
Family Practice Physicians ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Balance Problems

This article illustrates the potential of placing audiology services in a family physician’s practice setting to increase referrals of geriatric and pediatric patients to audiologists. The primary focus of family practice physicians is the diagnosis/intervention of critical systemic disorders (e.g., cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer). Hence concurrent hearing/balance disorders are likely to be overshadowed in such patients. If audiologists get referrals from these physicians and have direct access to diagnose and manage concurrent hearing/balance problems in these patients, successful audiology practice patterns will emerge, and there will be increased visibility and profitability of audiological services. As a direct consequence, audiological services will move into the mainstream of healthcare delivery, and the profession of audiology will move further towards its goals of early detection and intervention for hearing and balance problems in geriatric and pediatric populations.

Dying to Watch

2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laramie D. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Terror Management Theory ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Sexual Content ◽  
Entertainment Media ◽  
Sexual Values ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Sexual Cognitions ◽  
Sexual Media

Research has shown that thoughts about death influence sexual cognitions and some media choices. The present study tested the hypothesis that thoughts about death may affect individuals’ tendency to select or avoid entertainment media programming containing sexual material. In two experiments, thoughts about death (mortality salience [MS]) were manipulated before college undergraduates expressed interest in viewing television shows and movies with varying amounts of sexual content. In both studies, MS was associated with greater overall interest in sexual media content. Although terror management theory would indicate that sexual worldview should moderate this effect, this was not observed to be the case. In addition, MS was not found to affect interest in other types of highly engaging media content including violent and dramatic content. Limitations regarding generalizability are discussed. Results suggest that MS increases a preference for sexual media content, and that this occurs for individuals with diverse sexual values systems. This is discussed in terms of implications for terror management theory and cognitive models of media influence.

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