I ca n’t remember it because of my forgetfulness?

In life, we often encounter a dilemma. Whether it is the test answer or the gossip with friends, it may be intermittent -that is, thinking of a thing, I feel that I can blurt out immediately, but I just want to think about it all at once, but I just want to think of it all at once Don't get up, what to say. For example, when I met an old acquaintance when I was shopping, I couldn't remember the other person's name. I could only use this vague sentence to cover up their embarrassment.

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At this time, we often pat their minds, complaining that we are old when we are so fast? How does memory decline so fast? I really convinced myself ...

In fact, you don't have to doubt yourself so much. This common existence and the reason for its generation were proposed by psychologists more than 100 years ago, called "tip-of-the-tongue phenomenononon" more than 100 years ago. Essence It is also referred to as TOT for short, which means that a kind of answer is in the mouth, which can clearly feel but cannot say the export feeling.

1. Why does the "tongue phenomenon" come from?

With the continuous improvement of the method of studying the tongue phenomenon, many researchers have paid attention to their mechanism, and the mechanism of this phenomenon has also triggered a lot of arguments. Here are several typical hypothesis.

Cognitive psychology describes the process of human memory as "encoding -storage -retrieval -decoding" process. The tip of the tongue is a typical retrieval or decoding failure. In simple terms, we can compare the brain to a computer. The information we obtained from the outside world is automatically encoded and is stored in different positions in the "hard disk". The process of memories is the process of retrieving and extraction of the information stored before, and finally produced the original image, name, and meaning. The failure of the information during the retrieval or decoding process will make the information recall a little bit worse, thereby forming a "tongue phenomenon".

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(1) Partial activation theory believes that the occurrence of the tip of the tongue is due to the insufficient activation of the information that needs to be extracted, or the lower limit required for successful extraction. For example, you asked me who said "the prince will have a kind of Ning Ning Ning"? I might not answer it all at once; if you ask me, "the prince will have a kind of Ning Ning" when it is when the peasant uprising in the late Qin Dynasty said? I may immediately say "Chen Sheng and Wu Guang". This is because the latter gives more activation, stronger intensity, and easier for our extraction.

(2) Interference hypothesis believes that the occurrence of the tip of the tongue is due to the emergence of words related to targets, which interferes with our extraction of target words. Researchers have found that these interference words related to targets will activate some information related to interference words, and this activation will further interfere with us to think of target words and cause more tongue phenomena.

For example, I want to travel to Northern Europe, tell my friends, want to say "Finland", but I can only think of "Denmark" in my mind, and then think of Andersen and Little Mermaid, and I can't remember the name of "Finland". Say the "Nordic and Denmark is a bit like a country."

(3) Insufficient inhibitory theory believes that when we want to think of target words, interference words related to target words may interfere with the retrieval and extraction of target words. The interference activation is related to the target word but incorrect information, and when we cannot suppress it, it will make us more difficult to think of the target words and cause the tip of the tongue.

Take the above example, repeating Danish and Little Mermaids may make our heads full of Denmark, and it is even more difficult to think of Finland's name.

It is worth noting that the "tip of the tongue" is just a common memory phenomenon, and it does not explain the quality of memory. It is not necessary to worry too much about it.

2. What factors will affect the appearance of "tongue phenomenon"?

1. Age factor. Studies have shown that with the increase of age, the number of tip of the tongue has a significant upward trend, which is related to the changes in brain activity related to the elderly and memory. This phenomenon not only manifests that the elderly have more tongue phenomena than young people, but also the tongue phenomenon that elderly elderly people have more tongue than old -age elderly people. Studies based on insufficient inhibitory theory pointed out that this is because the inhibitory function of the elderly will activate more unrelated information than young people, and it is difficult to suppress the impact of unrelated information on the current task.

2. Friends who often switch between multi -language are often easy to forget words. Many studies have proven that bilinguals are more likely to have the tip of the tongue than monologues. For example, in the process of academic exchanges, we often express directly in English for some proprietary nouns, but suddenly asking you what the word Chinese means, it is very easy to appear tongue phenomenon. This is because the information extraction of this word may stimulate the corresponding information corresponding to the two languages ​​at the same time, and this information occasionally interferes with each other, causing extraction difficulties.

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3. Similar vocabulary. Researchers have found that the characteristics of the vocabulary itself are related to the occurrence of the tip of the tongue, and some words are more likely to produce tongue phenomenon than others. The vocabulary neighborhoods will affect the possibility of the tip of the tongue in the vocabulary. Studies have found that the tongue phenomenon is more likely to appear in words with long words, low frequency, and less neighborhood words. It can also be said that we are more prone to the tongue phenomenon in some rare, unfamiliar and difficult words.

4. Emotional factors. Excitement or negative emotions increase the number of tongue phenomena and the time to increase the tip of the tongue. Emotional clues will increase the possibility of subsequent tongue phenomenon. For example, researchers' experiments found that the question that participants answered emotional emotions were more phenomenon of tongue phenomenon reported than when answering neutral questions. (Image source: Veer Gallery)

3. How to deal with the "tip of the tongue"?

Although the "tongue phenomenon" is not morbid, daily life may also cause us to distress. If you have something to say, but you ca n’t say that you are uncomfortable, when you should say, the “sudden broken film” may also make yourself miss the opportunity to some important nodes. So how do we overcome it in daily life? Here we will give you a few tricks.

1. More important things to repeat more

Our daily memory goals, whether it is exams, recitation, or lectures, reports, often want to store the instant information more "firmly" in the brain to extract at any time, and the key to this "firm" lies in retelling. What we always say is "familiar and read" is the principle -recite multiple times, and repeated strengthening can enhance the storage and extraction of memory.

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2. Build related knowledge networks

Related and connected knowledge can help us extract the corresponding information. Effective knowledge network construction can provide clues to the retrieval of our relevant information. These clues are conducive to establishing an effective search system, and then promote the timely and effective extraction of knowledge.

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For example, in the face of the exams that look familiar and unfamiliar in the exam, you can first see "Where did you see before this similar question?" "Which chapter of the book?" "How to solve similar questions?" Wait as a clue to solve the problem.

For another example, you saw a poster of a popular actor on the street, but he couldn't remember his name at once. At this time, you can start with "What is his film?" "What happened in the movie?" "What happened?" "What kind of variety I saw him went to?" These questions started with memories.

3. Relieve tension

The emotions of peace and relaxation are conducive to the extraction of memory; on the contrary, the intense and restless environment is more likely to occur. Whether it is exams, public speeches or confession, or proposal, we will take a deep breath before starting, so that ourselves focus and pay attention to this moment, which is more conducive to our smooth expression.

4. Do other things first

When we face the failure of the sudden information extraction, we can do not have to rush to do other things, say anything else, write other questions, and we may also get related clues in other processes, and "Mao Seton opens" Essence For example, when I heard a melody in the supermarket today, I like it very much, I can't remember what song it is. A friend suddenly mentioned a singer in a few days, which made me suddenly think of that melody was the masterpiece of this singer. Or, the answer to filling in the blanks feels that you can't say it. Go to make a big question first. Some information in the big question may give you some inspiration.

Finally, I wish you all want to say anything immediately!

Produced: Popular Science China

Author: Qi Shuting (Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Producer: China Science Popularization Expo

references:

1. Guo Taomei, Peng Yingling. The research progress of the tongue phenomenon. Psychological science. 2005, 28 (2), 494-496.

2. Peng Huamao, Mao Xiaofei. (2018). Inhibit the impact of the tongue phenomenon of the elderly. Psychology Journal, 50 (10), 1142-1150.

3. Su Ling, Chen Jun. (2011). Why is there a "tongue phenomenon"?-TOT phenomenon struggle. Psychological science, 34 (11), 77-81.

4.BROWN, a. S. (1991). A review of the tip-of-the-tongue experience. Psychology bulletin, 109 (2), 204–223.

5.Choi, H., & Smith, S. M. (2005). Incubation and the resolution of tip-of-the-tongue states. The Journal of General Psychology, 132 (4), 365–376.

6.Schwartz, B. L. (2010). The effects of emotion on tip-of-the-the-tongue states. Psychonomic bulletin and review, 17 (1), 82–87.

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