Tip-of-the-tongue States

<p>Tip-of-the-Tongue experiences are one of those illusive oddities of human cognition. Like slips of the tongue déjà vu and visual illusions TOTs dazzle us with their subjective strength yet at the same time puzzle us with our frustrating inability to retrieve the desired word. This book discusses what little is known about TOTs and speculates about much of the rest of the riddle. Cognitive psychologists know a lot about processes but generally avoid issues of conscious experience and phenomenology. Because the larger goal of this book is to relate the TOT experience to the study of human phenomenology it goes beyond the conventional cognitive psychology question What causes tip-of-the-tongue experiences? to ask Why do we experience TOTs at all?</p>