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In a 1966 study of the tip-of-the-tongue feeling, Roger Brown and David McNeill read people definitions of rare words, such as a small boat used in East Asian harbours. Those who got stuck often still knew the word's first letter and number of syllables, though the word itself would not come.

Roger Brown & David McNeill, 1966 study

MindLanguageScience

The story behind the card

The boat was a sampan, and people who could not find the word came up with near misses such as 'Saipan', 'Siam' and 'sarong'. Psychologists think a word's meaning and its sound are stored in linked but separate parts of memory: in a tip-of-the-tongue state the meaning is active, but the signal does not fully reach the sound, so only fragments such as the first letter get through. The feeling becomes more common with age, and names are especially prone to it, since a name carries little meaning that could lead back to it. It seems to be universal: one survey found that 45 of 51 languages have an expression for it, like the Turkish 'dilimin ucunda'.

Türkçe oku
Roger Brown ve David McNeill 1966'da “dilimin ucunda” hissini incelemek için katılımcılara az bilinen kelimelerin tanımlarını okudu; örneğin Doğu Asya limanlarında kullanılan küçük bir tekne. Kelimeyi bulamayanlar bile çoğu zaman ilk harfini ve hece sayısını biliyordu.

Aranan kelime “sampan”dı; onu bulamayanlar “Saipan”, “Siam”, “sarong” gibi sesçe yakın kelimeler söyledi. Psikologlara göre bir kelimenin anlamı ile sesi bellekte birbirine bağlı ama ayrı yerlerde tutulur. Kelime dilin ucundayken anlam devrededir, ama sinyal sese tam ulaşmaz; bu yüzden ilk harf gibi yalnızca parçalar geçer. Bu his yaş ilerledikçe sıklaşır ve özellikle kişi adlarında yaşanır, çünkü bir ad, insanı ona geri götürecek pek bir anlam taşımaz. Görünüşe göre evrensel bir deneyim: bir araştırma, incelenen 51 dilin 45'inde bunun için bir deyim bulunduğunu gösterdi; Türkçedeki “dilimin ucunda” da onlardan biri.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Tip of the tongue
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