Tip of the Tongue Phenomenology - Essay Example

Tip of the Tongue Phenomenology In this article, "Sparkling at the end of the tongue: The etiology. of tip-of-the-tongue phenomenology by Bennett L. Schwartz, the history if the study of this phenomenon is quickly covered and then theories are examined. William James’s wrote a much quoted and quite interesting description of the feeling when a person experiences this phenomenon in 1890 in his Principles of Psychology. R. Brown and McNeill wrote a paper in 1966 paper on TOTs beginning empirical research on TOTs. They developed a methodology for inducing TOTs in a controlled setting. They provided students with definitions for obscure words and then questioned those who found themselves experiencing a TOT about their feelings and what they could identify about the reticent word. A. S. Brown (1991), summarized and organized the relevant research on TOTs up to 1991 and introduced critical theoretical questions of which most remain untested. Schwartz believes that, “TOTs are ideal case studies in human phenomenology because of their universality.” A main argument in this paper involved whether or not there is concordance among cognitive processes, that is that complicated computations underlie all thought, and thought underlies behavior, which is accompanied by feelings, which we term phenomenological experience. (Tulving, 1989, p. 8). Tulving claims that there may be disassociations in cognitive processes and that there may not be as much connection among behavior, cognition, and phenomenology as is assumed, and that the doctrine of concordance, therefore, is not valid. Schmitz argues that cognitive processes are responsible for both observable behavior and phenomenological experience, thus proving the doctrine. The reasoning is based in the fact that most memory retrieval is not accompanies by feelings that anything has occurred, and therefore, there may be different cognitive processes which underlie the phenomenological experience, such as TOT. Current research on TOTs assumes cognitive processes of retrieval and the phenomenology of TOTs are the same process. Schwartz argues that new research on TOT shows that phenomenological experience can be disassociated from word retrieval, thus disproving the concordance doctrine. He argues that the feeling of having the TOT experience is not the same as the experience itself. TOT is described as the state of memory when the sought word is inaccessible. TOT equates to inaccessibility and imminence. (A. S. Brown, 1991). It is necessary for the person to believe he knows the missing word. It is interesting to note that, across 51 languages …, 45 languages included an expression that used the “tongue” metaphor or those related involving the throat or mouth to express the feeling of not being able to retrieve an accessible word. One which did not was ASL. (American Sign Language) Is this possibly connected to the lack of employing the tongue with ASL?(my observation.) Some see TOT as failed retrieval, but there are differences in the reported phenomena. Some people report TOT when another word interferes with the retrieval of the correct word, but others simply report that feeling of the word not being where it should be. It is possible that the metacognitive model is correct, and that “Metacognitive Models … do not assume the doctrine of concordance because it is possible that it is a function of the metacognitive process rather than the ongoing cognitive processes…. The monitoring process which causes TOTs is separable from the cognitive process that retrieves the information. Other approaches include: the “everyday-ecological approach (e.g., Read & Bruce, 1982; Reason & Lucas, 1984) (which) has considered TOTs to be an important topic because TOTs are “inherently interesting,”(A. S. Brown 1991) , Developmental approaches(which) have examined TOTs in children and in older adults and Neuropsychological approaches(which) have looked at TOTs in patient populations” Theories of TOT: Direct-access views argue that TOTs happen when there is sensitivity to the unretrieved target, a sensing that it is there, and Inferential views, which claim that TOTs are not based directly on an inaccessible but activated target. Rather, TOTs are caused by clues that the target can piece together. In other words, the direct access view blames the sensitivity to the missing word for producing the TOT while Inferential blames the clue to the inaccessible word for the TOT. (Do you miss your coat because you are cold or because you remember how the warm coat felt in the cold?) If TOT reflects activation of a target word but insufficient activation to achieve recall, then the sensitivity model works, but if TOT reflects target word activation then retrieval process is causing the TOT for the unrecalled word. Models include blocking, incomplete retrieval or transmission deficit. Data for eventual retrieval of the word are skewed and unreliable, so actual memory statistics are not useful. However, the metacognitive model works more than not and explains most observed facts. Response to this paper: The paper explains the history and theory of TOT very well. However, among the various theories available, the metacognitive model works best for me. The study points out that there is often partial memory involved and that there are cues to the missing word. I note that there is one thing missing from all of the theories described: there is little study of the processes for resolving the TOT without consulting references. I believe that all data have meaning, and should be collected. I do not know from these studies how others resolve TOTs. However, I begin with vocal articulation of synonyms and definitions followed by a survey of the alphabet (in order) seeking those letters which seem to belong. Sometimes I close my eyes and make motions with my hands and arms, and even tilt my head in different directions. I do not know if any of these are helpful. I can only say that I have a very high incidence of retrieval without using outside sources. Also, one of my friends who speaks several different languages only experiences TOT in her native tongue, and never in the others, even when she cannot retrieve a target word. Both of these would seem to point to the metacognitive model, since metacognition would naturally work in the mother tongue, but maybe not in second languages. I see no research on this score. The commonality of the use of the tongue or mouth metaphor in most languages seems significant to me, especially since that metaphor is very physical. I take physical actions along with thought to resolve TOTs. I do not know if my recall would be lower if I avoided these reactions. That I do this seems to be a metacognitive approach to resolution, since it does not really involve thought. I do not plan to take physical actions, but simply do it without planning. The metacognitive model makes complete sense if we observe that when presented with a word list containing the missing word, recognition brings with it a phenomenon of feeling that the hole has been filled or the missing or misplaced word had been put back where it belongs. I know this from my own observations and from questioning colleagues. All reported that when they read the word in a list, as in the thesaurus, it immediately triggered feelings of closure, of having completed an important task. From this information I wonder if there is any connection between TOTs and facial recognition. Facial recognition but inability to retrieve connected information, such as names or where we last saw the person, produces a very similar emotional reaction is the person experiencing the phenomenon. That alone point to a sort of “misfiling” which has taken place. Perhaps neurological connections have been lost, or connecting related information. IT would be interesting to see if this phenomenon can be induced using objects in place of words, such as portraits of faces, odors and sounds or parts of well known objects. It seems that, rather than assume connections among the cognitive processes and the emotional response to the inability to retrieve the desired information using the usual cognitive processes, we should look at the connections among the various phenomena which occur when some piece of specific information cannot be retrieved, not just when the missing information is words. I believe that correlating these would tend to prove the metacognitive model. This article raises questions concerning the mechanisms at work: are they physical, emotional or intellectual, and what are the connections among these types of processes? It also makes me which there was some data on IQ models. Do smart people experience TOTs more or less often than average or less intelligent people? The article mentioned that there is research being done with children and the elderly in developmental models of theory investigation. However, since this article points out that children and older people may have more TOTs, but does not explain that older people may also have much larger vocabularies, and more opportunities for TOT; I believe there is a possibility of misinterpretation. We see younger people as less learned, but they may actually simply have less redundancy of stored information, and, therefore fewer connections to related information. This seems to show that there is a physical process taking place that causes a TOT, but that this is actually quite separate from the TOT. In light of this probability, we are back to the triggering mechanism. Is it the activation of the known information but a missing pathway to it, or is the information blocked by other similar information? Does the target word activate the TOT or does the information related to it which is remembered trigger it? Then, what is the relationship between TOTs and the feeling of completion which often occurs when they are resolved? Another area for further study is the connection among TOTs and the other memory related phenomena, such as face recognition, answers to trivia questions and identification of odors or places in pictures. The TOT phenomena do not seem to be strictly limited to retrieval of particular words, but rather to retrieval of particular information, all of which are expressed in words, because there is little other choice than expressing the feelings in words. How would people express this feeling without using words? How do people who use only ASL express this feeling in connection with retrieval of other information? Before reading this article, I was aware of the phenomenon of TOT, but I had not really considered its importance. However, in looking at related phenomena concerning other types of data, the real question to me is how we can tell which processes are active for which purposes. We know that memory involves cognitive functions, but this article points to metacognitive function as the cause for our reaction to the use of memory and its functional state. Without the physical functions of storage and retrieval, we have no metacognitive function, since we have no capacity for thought. I would postulate that without the metacognitive functions, we have no reaction emotionally, because we have no information to which we can react. Before reading this article, I also had no idea how very little we know. We seem to be able to see the spaces, but not how to fill them. The areas where research needs to be done is far larger than even this author (Schmitz 2007) Since the TOT experience seems to cover any kind of particular data retrieval, involving any kind of data. I believe these other areas should be explored. There must be a connection, since the emotional reaction is similar. There is no mention anywhere of the use of MRIs in this article. I would like to see some research using MRIs. Can they not detect physical processes? We have known for a long time that cognitive and metacognitive functions serve different purposes. How is that related to this phenomenon? For me this article raised a whole array of new questions. I am quite surprised at the lack of research on many points. References Schwartz, Bennett L. 1999, Sparkling at the end of the tongue: The etiology of tip-of-the-tongue phenomenology, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 1999, 6 (3), 379-393 Read More