Tip of the tongue (TOT) phenomenon occurs when you fail to retrieve a word from memory, although you may have partial recall of the word and may feel like the retrieval is imminent (Thompson, Emmory, &Gollan, 2005). Or in other words, when you cannot remember a word you are certain you know. People commonly use the phrase “it’s on the tip of my tongue” when this occurs (Thompson, Emmory, & Gollan, 2005). Although TOT’s are widely known, this can also occur in sign languages. Parallel to the TOT phenomenon, tips of the fingers (TOF) is a very similar state. TOF occurs when signers fail to retrieve a sign from memory, although they may have partial recall of the sign and may feel like the retrieval is imminent (Thompson et al 2005) Therefore, signers may feel like they know a sign but cannot retrieve it from memory so they cannot form the sign. Both of these phenomenons support the idea of a language-universal processing pattern (Thompson et al, 2005). However, there is an eminent lack of research on TOF’s. Due to this lack of research, this form of language processing pattern is often neglected and misconstrued. Further research conducted on this topic could aid additional support on the idea of a common language processing pattern.

The TOT phenomenon has interested psychologists for over a century (Brown, 1991). This phenomenon occurs when you are on the verge of access of recalling a word but you are unable to retrieve it (Cleary & Claxton, 2015). An example of the verge of access is remembering the first letter of the word you are trying to recall it (Cleary & Claxton, 2015). Most individuals guess the correct first letter of a word 51% of the time (Brown, 1991). At the same time this is occuring individuals may be thinking about characteristics to help retrieve the word.”The presence of a TOT state itself might be used to infer characteristics or qualities regarding the unretrieved information (Cleary &Claxton, 2015, p.1538).The most common TOT’s are essentially names of objects and famous people (Brown, 1991). TOTs are similar to the “feeling-of-knowing” (FOK) but are separate concepts (Brown, 1991). During TOT’s, individuals feel as if they know the word but cannot produce it. During FOK’s, an individual feels as if they will be able to recognize the word if they were provided with a list of items to choose from (Brown, 1991).

One of the first psychologists to conduct research on TOT’s was R. Brown (Brown, 1991). Although TOT’s are difficult phenomenon to study, Brown played a key role in providing a systematic exploration of the phenomenon. Brown’s findings suggest that people experience TOT’s regularly in everyday life (Brown, 1991). 51% of individual’s experience TOT’s weekly and 14% experience it daily (Brown, 1991). However, studies show that the older you are the more likely you are to experience TOT’s (Brown, 1991). Older individuals experience two to four TOT’s states weekly while younger individuals only experience one to two TOT’s states (Brown, 1991). Although, these are only estimates of the amount of TOT’s. Most TOT’s occur during everyday life and individuals tend to forget about them because either they were too preoccupied or because their TOT state was resolved (Brown, 1991). Also, interestingly, Brown realized that TOT’s are more likely to occur when an individual is under stress (Brown, 1991). In addition, Brown’s findings suggest TOT’s increase with age, occur weekly, commonly elicited by proper names, often are able to guess first letter of target word, and are half the time resolved during experience. In conclusion, Brown states TOT’s are a universal state across all languages (Brown, 1991).

A new and evolving phenomenon to the psychology of language are TOF’s. The TOF phenomenon is when a signer fails to retrieve a sign and therefore cannot produce it. Few research has been done on this topic causing common misconceptions about TOF’s and sign language in general. A common misconception people have about sign language is that the “intended meaning and sign are always related” (Thompson et al, 2005, p.856). This is known as an iconic sign, or a sign that reflects its meaning. Due to this misconception people believe signers shouldn’t experience the TOF phenomenon (Thompson et al, 2005). However, not all signs are iconic or appear like their intended meaning(Thompson et al, 2005). The phonology(study of sound patterns) and semantics (word meaning) have been questioned in sign language (Thompson et al, 2005).In spite of the fact of this misconception, sign language does include parameters which are basic phonological units. There are four parameters in sign language including handshape, movement, location, and orientation of the palm (Emmorey & Corina, 1990). Interestingly, signers show faster lexical identification in comparison to speakers (Emmorey & Corina, 1990). This is due to the fact that most of the phonological information in sign language occurs simultaneously (Emmorey & Corina, 1990). In addition, this also supports the idea that language production can be impacted by lexical recognition in sign language (Emmorey & Corina, 1990).

Recent research has embraced the idea of a language-universal processing pattern. This is the idea that all languages, whether spoken or signed, share the same processing pattern and cognitive mechanisms (Baus, Gutiérrez, & Carreiras, 2014). Sign language and spoken language have the same linguistic processing phenomena such as semantic, phonological, and lexical (Baus et al, 2014).Both signs and words can be broken down into phonological units such as parameters (Baus et al, 2014). Sign language and spoken language both involve lexical retrieval during memory failure while attempting to retrieve a sign or word. Furthermore, signs and words have their own individual meanings behind them, supporting the idea of semantics. All in all, sign language and spoken language share a lot of similarities.

A great example of a language-universal processing pattern is Thompson et al’s (2005) “Tip of the fingers” experiences by deaf signer’s study. This study focused on determining if deaf singers experience TOF states like speaker’s experience TOT states. The main questions of the study proposed: do ASL signers experience TOFS? Are TOF’s similar to TOT’s? Finally, what dimensions of target signs of finger-spelled words are retrieved during TOF’s? The experiment included 33 deaf American Sign Language (ASL) signers. 18 of these participants were native signers, while the other 8 acquired sign language at an early age. All participants preferred and used ASL as their primary language. In the first procedure, participants were shown 20 pictures of famous faces and were instructed to fingerspell each name of the famous faces or indicate if they couldn’t remember. This procedure was focused on the elicit fingerspelled TOF state. In the second procedure, participants were shown a list of English words including proper names for cities, countries, and low-frequency words which were indicated to increase TOF’s. They were instructed to translate these words into ASL or indicate if they couldn’t remember. Incorrect responses were coded as “don’t know” responses. This procedure was focused on elicit lexical signed TOF’s.

The results for the elicit fingerspelled TOF showed that participants made in total 55 TOF’s for finger-spelled names (Thompson et al, 2005). 56% of the finger-spelled TOF’s participants had partial recall of the name (Thompson et al, 2005). Participants were also most likely to recall the first letter of their first or last name. The elicit lexical signed TOF results showed that there was a total of 24 TOF’s reported for lexical signs (Thompson et al, 2005). The majority of these lexical TOF’s were for proper names. Overall, both procedures had a total of 79 TOF’s (Thompson et al, 2005). In more than half of the TOF’s, participants reported three to four of the phonological parameters. In addition, TOF’s were resolved 60% of the time (Thompson et al, 2005). In conclusion, TOF retrieval failure is similar to TOT failure. TOf recall was similar to TOT because both has partial recall. However, lexical TOFs differed from TOT’s in amount of info simultaneously available. Furthermore, results showed handshape is not easier to access than other parameters. Although, participants were least likely to recall movement. This study showed the various similarities between TOF’s and TOT’s. The overall results of this study support the idea of a language-universal processing pattern (Thompson et al, 2005).

Signers experience the same cognitive mechanisms and language processing patterns as speakers. However, there are few studies conducted on TOF’s and there is a lack of empirical research on this topic. Due to the lack of empirical research, TOF states still remain unknown to the public. In addition, the general public still perceives all signs in sign language as iconic. However, not all signs reflect their meaning. Further research needs to be conducted on TOF’s and their comparison with TOT’s. Additionally, sign language and spoken language both involve linguistic processing such as semantics, lexical retrieval, and phonological parameters. Fascinatingly, signers are faster than speakers in lexical retrieval.The more people educated on this topic, the more people who would be able to understand the language-universal processing patterns.

Sources

Baus, C., Gutiérrez, E., & Carreiras, M. (2014). The role of syllables in sign language production. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1254. http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01254

Brown, A.S. (1991). A review of the tip-of-the-tongue experience. Psychological Bulletin, 109, 204–223.

Cleary, A. M., & Claxton, A. B. (2015). The tip-of-the-tongue heuristic: How tip-of-the-tongue states confer perceptibility on inaccessible words. Journal Of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, And Cognition, 41(5), 1533-1539. doi:10.1037/xlm0000097

Emmorey, K., & Corina, D. (1990). Lexical recognition in sign language: Effects of phonetic structure and morphology. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 71, 1227–1252.

Thompson, R., Emmory, K., & Gollan, T.H. (2005). ”Tip of the fingers” experiences by deaf signers. Psychological Science, 16, 856–860.