The Search for an Elusive Word : Verbal search procedures in Tip-of-the-Tongue states

The tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state refers to the familiar predicament of being unable to retrieve a specific word at a required moment, while being certain of knowing the word. TOT states may be caused by incomplete activation levels of an elusive target word, or by the initial retrieval of a phonologically related word blocking retrieval of a target word. In this thesis, a spoken response experiment designed to monitor the search procedure was used to elicit and examine the TOT state. The results showed that related words were absent in most TOTs, and that partial phonological information was retrieved initially in a majority of TOTs. These results support the partial activation hypothesis’ notion that incomplete activation levels of the target word are the cause of TOT states