“What is it called?!” “I know what you mean, it lies at the tip of my tongue...I just cannot think of it!” – Expressions like these are used quite frequently in our everyday lives. These so called Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) experiences occur throughout all age bands, yet, older adults seem to experience them more often than younger adults do. But they also differ in various types of words: This phenomenon constitutes the basis of this research. Many previous studies investigating this topic focused on proper nouns as a word type, which is why the present study will focus on homonyms and polysemes in order to analyze if older adults perform differently in a picture naming and a question task between those two word types and also compared to younger adults. The anticipated findings are that older adults will have difficulties retrieving one word type compared to the other and also perform worse than the younger adults in both tasks overall. These results will show that word retrieval is therefore influence by the normal aging process.
Inhaltsverzeichnis (Table of Contents)
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Research Question
- Relevance
- Topic of Study
- Hypothesis
- Previous Research
- Set-up of the study
- Results
- Discussion
- References
- Appendix
Zielsetzung und Themenschwerpunkte (Objectives and Key Themes)
This research paper investigates the variation of tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) experiences in different word types, particularly homonyms and polysemes, comparing performance between older and younger adults. The study aims to determine if there are age-related differences in the retrieval of these specific word types and how these differences may relate to the aging process and word retrieval decline.
- Age-related differences in TOT experiences
- Word retrieval processes in older adults
- The role of homonyms and polysemes in word retrieval
- The impact of aging on semantic and phonological representations of words
- The relevance of TOT experiences for understanding cognitive decline in aging
Zusammenfassung der Kapitel (Chapter Summaries)
The abstract provides an overview of the study's focus on TOT experiences and how they vary across age groups and word types. The introduction delves into the research question, its relevance, the topic of study, and the hypotheses that will be tested. The "Previous Research" section explores existing studies on TOT experiences in relation to aging, particularly emphasizing the increased frequency of these experiences in older adults.
Schlüsselwörter (Keywords)
The primary keywords and focus topics include tip-of-the-tongue experiences, word retrieval, aging, homonyms, polysemes, semantic representation, phonological representation, cognitive decline, and age-related differences.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Tip-of-the-Tongue (TOT) experience?
A TOT experience is the feeling that a specific word is known but cannot be immediately retrieved from memory, often described as "lying on the tip of the tongue."
Do older adults experience more TOT states?
Yes, research suggests that older adults experience TOT states more frequently than younger adults due to changes in the word retrieval process during aging.
What are homonyms and polysemes?
Homonyms are words that sound alike but have different meanings. Polysemes are single words with multiple related meanings.
How does aging affect semantic and phonological representations?
Aging can lead to a "transmission deficit" where the connection between the meaning of a word (semantics) and its sound (phonology) becomes weaker.
What was the goal of the picture naming task?
The task was designed to analyze if older adults perform differently when retrieving specific word types compared to younger participants.
- Quote paper
- Melanie Pongratz (Author), 2016, The Variation of Tip-of-the-Tongue experiences in different word types, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/454902
