Examining the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon with scalar judgments
Date
2023
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Abstract
The Tip-of-the-Tongue (TOT) state, which is the feeling of being on the verge of retrieving a word that is as of yet unretrieved, occupies a space between a lack of recall and successful recall. Recent work has found that when someone experiences a TOT state they are more likely to attribute fluent characteristics to the sought after item. The present study sought to explore whether this TOT heuristic was driven by attribution of fluency and what, if any, relationship exists between the TOT heuristic and the subjective intensity of a given TOT state. Initial experiments were able to identify the TOT heuristic with both a binary and scalar TOT rating, but did not find any impact of objective fluency on the TOT heuristic. Follow-up experiments expanded on these findings by utilizing both a scalar (1 to 10 intensity rating) and binary (yes or no) TOT rating. A positive relationship between TOT magnitude ratings and the TOT heuristic was identified. This relationship was significant for both ratings of whether an item had been previously presented and font color ratings.
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tip-of-the-tongue
tip of the tongue