In language, we commonly pause and have speech disfluencies due to tip of the tongue (TOT) or tip of the fingers (TOF) state during language production. These are both examples of language disruptions while trying to cognitively access a meaning or word. Speech disfluency is a normal interruption in a speech pattern which occurs more often than we think. Some examples of spoken speech disfluencies are sayings such as “uhm”, “uh”, or even coughing. In sign language, a loose rotating pivot of the hand while making a thinking facial expression is the equivalent to a spoken language “uhm”. Surprisingly, speech disfluencies have proven to improve memory production. In correlation to speech disfluencies, it is common for people to fail to retrieve words or signs and be in a TOT or TOF state. Sometimes, people can have partial recall of the word or sign such as remembering the first letter of a word, associating it with something similar, or remembering a specific parameter of a sign. Typically, people have pauses in language production when asking or answering a question. It is difficult for people to have perfect language production without speech disfluencies and a TOT or TOF state. We believe that there is a positive correlation between language disruptions with speech disfluencies and TOT/TOF states.

In a study done by Kidd, White, and Aslin (2011) they conducted two experiments on children and their ability to recognize disfluencies early on. In both experiments, the children ranged from ages 1-8 years old and were introduced to new “novel” objects replacing familiar objects. For example, in the experiment, a familiar object was a cup and the novel object replacing the cup was the word “biffle”. In the experiment, researchers would produce a speech disfluency such as “uhm” or “uh” before producing a novel or a familiar object. Therefore, when they produced a speech disfluency, children would expect a novel object and this would take them longer to process the information they were seeing even if they recognized the familiar object that they heard. In conclusion to this study, these results proved that children recognized that speech disfluencies contain information. Because children recognized disfluencies, they learned to develop the ability to use speech disfluencies as well. Researchers realized children begin to develop the ability to use speech disfluencies around the age of two years old.

In a study done by Thompson, Emmorey, & Gollan (2005) they conducted two experiments on Deaf adult ASL signers and recorded their experiences of TOF’s in comparison to spoken language’s TOT’s. There were four parameters measured in this study: (1) handshape, (2) location, (3) movement, and (4) orientation of the hand (s). In experiment 1, participants were shown 20 famous faces and asked to fingerspell each name or indicate when they couldn’t remember. In experiment 2, participants were shown a list of English words and asked to translate the words into ASL or indicate when they couldn’t remember. The results concluded that TOF retrieval failure is similar to TOT failure, that there is a division between semantics and phonological representations, and that TOF’s were most frequently proper names and that signers are least likely to recall movement. This study supports the idea of a language-universal processing pattern regardless of language modality.

This TOF study supports and correlates with the idea of TOT’s. Commonly, TOT’s are associated with speech disfluencies. For example, if someone asked you who was your first grade teacher, you might feel like you know the answer but because it was a while ago you just can’t retrieve it from your memory.This might cause you to create a speech disfluency such as saying “Uhm uh… I think I know it, it’s on the tip of my tongue.” You see, these language pauses commonly correlate with each other and are more prominent in our everyday lives than people realize.

However, we believe there are possible age limitations which pertain to both studies. In the study conducted by Kidd et al(2011), participants were fairly young ranging in ages 1 through 8 years. In the study conducted by Thompson et al (2005) participants were older in comparison to Kidd’s participants, ranging in ages 19 through 44 years. Although, both groups of participants ranged from young children to middle aged adults, they didn’t include older participants. As we get older, cognitively our brains start to decline and we have increased risk of impairments. This age group of participants could have possibly had more instances of TOT or TOF states and speech disfluencies. We think future research on language disruptions should be conducted including samples from each age group to include an accurate representation of the impact they have throughout people’s lives.

References

Kidd, C., White, K.S., & Aslin, R.N. (2011). Toddlers use speech disfluencies to predict speakers’ referential intentions. Developmental Science, 14, 925–934.

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