Day 59 of 150 Language Difficulty 3/10
Tip-of-tongue states preserve partial lexical information
Quick answer
Tip-of-tongue states preserve partial lexical information. Today's question (Tip-of-the-tongue states) asks about a finding from Brown, R., & McNeill, D. in 1966. The correct option is The full target word with normal latency — full explanation, primary source, and glossary cross-links below.
Today's question
Brown & McNeill (1966) elicited tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states by reading definitions of rare words. Participants in a TOT state could often report all of the following EXCEPT:
Reveal the answer and explanation
Correct: D — The full target word with normal latency
When in a tip-of-the-tongue state, participants reliably reported the first letter, the number of syllables, partial phonological information, and semantically-related neighbours — but were temporarily unable to retrieve the full target. The study demonstrated that lexical retrieval is not all-or-none and that semantic and phonological information are stored partially independently. TOT states are universal, increase modestly with age, and are now used as a precise probe of lexical-retrieval architecture and phonological-priming research.
About the source
Brown, R., & McNeill, D. (1966). The 'tip of the tongue' phenomenon. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 5(4), 325–337.
Every Cognition Bible question cites a primary source — a paper, book chapter, or monograph that exists, that we can point to on Google Scholar, and whose finding the question accurately summarizes. No fabricated authority strings, no name-drops without paper-level grounding.
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