Mnemonic factors associated with the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

The tip-of-the-tongue (ToT) phenomenon is a transient semantic memory retrieval failure. Here we examined to what extent different mnemonic factors (i.e., age of acquisition, frequency of retrieval, recency of last retrieval) impact ToTs during the retrieval of famous faces and places. Eighty adults completed a self-paced experiment for both stimuli. This required making judgements on whether they knew the name, were in a ToT state, the image was familiar or the name was unknown, as well as completing follow-up questions examining the mnemonic factors of interest. Results revealed that later acquired names, a lower frequency of retrieval, and less recently encountered names, all predicted an increase in ToT occurrences. These findings followed a similar pattern across faces and places, with places being stronger predictors for each mnemonic factor. By examining these factors simultaneously across these semantic categories, we provide further evidence regarding the variables determining transient retrieval failures.