Contrary to popular beliefs that frequent tip-of-the-tongue moments are a sign of ageing, researchers found that the two phenomena are actually independent.
Previous anecdotal reports have suggested that as people being ageing they tend to have more tip-of-the-tongue moments. However, there has been no solid proof linking these cognitive stumbles to actual memory problems. Therefore, Timothy Salthouse of the University of Virginia conducted a study to see if the two are actually interrelated.
"We wondered whether these self-reports are valid and, if they are, do they truly indicate age-related failures of the type of memory used in the diagnosis of dementia?" he said.
For the study, Salthouse, with the help of Arielle Mandell, an undergraduate researcher who was working on her senior thesis was able to draw out tip-of-the-tongue moments from 700 participants in the laboratory. The participants, aged between 18 and 99 years, were asked to recall and recite names of famous places, common nouns, or famous people based on brief descriptions or pictures.
Researchers made a note of the answers that the participants knew, didn't know and the ones that made them have a tip-of-the-tongue moment. They found that questions like "What is the name of the building where one can view images of celestial bodies on the inner surface of a dome?" and "What is the name of the large waterfall in Zambia that is one of the Seven Wonders of the World?" induced such moments.
Overall, it was observed that older people had more such frustrating moments than younger individuals. However, when certain factors like a person's general knowledge was taken into consideration; they found no association between frequency of tip-of-the-tongue moments and participants' performance on the types of memory tests usually used to detect dementia.
"Even though increased age is associated with lower levels of episodic memory and with more frequent tip-of-the-tongue experiences...the two phenomena seem to be largely independent of one another," Salthouse concluded.
