First Published in 2011. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This volume seeks to assemble various works on the 'tip-of-the-tongue state' and related phenomena.

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?"

A New York Times Notable Book: A psychologist’s “gripping and thought-provoking” look at how and why our brains sometimes fail us (Steven Pinker, author of How the Mind Works). In this intriguing study, Harvard psychologist Daniel L. Schacter explores the memory miscues that occur in everyday life, placing them into seven categories: absent-mindedness, transience, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence. Illustrating these concepts with vivid examples—case studies, literary excerpts, experimental evidence, and accounts of highly visible news events such as the O. J. Simpson verdict, Bill Clinton’s grand jury testimony, and the search for the Oklahoma City bomber—he also delves into striking new scientific research, giving us a glimpse of the fascinating neurology of memory and offering “insight into common malfunctions of the mind” (USA Today). “Though memory failure can amount to little more than a mild annoyance, the consequences of misattribution in eyewitness testimony can be devastating, as can the consequences of suggestibility among pre-school children and among adults with ‘false memory syndrome’ . . . Drawing upon recent neuroimaging research that allows a glimpse of the brain as it learns and remembers, Schacter guides his readers on a fascinating journey of the human mind.” —Library Journal “Clear, entertaining and provocative . . . Encourages a new appreciation of the complexity and fragility of memory.” —The Seattle Times “Should be required reading for police, lawyers, psychologists, and anyone else who wants to understand how memory can go terribly wrong.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “A fascinating journey through paths of memory, its open avenues and blind alleys . . . Lucid, engaging, and enjoyable.” —Jerome Groopman, MD “Compelling in its science and its probing examination of everyday life, The Seven Sins of Memory is also a delightful book, lively and clear.” —Chicago Tribune Winner of the William James Book Award

The Oxford Handbook of Metamemory investigates the human ability to evaluate and control learning and information retrieval processes. Each chapter in this authoritative guide highlights a different facet of metamemory research, including classical metamemory judgments; applications of metamemory research to the classroom and courtroom; and cutting-edge perspectives on continuing debates and theory. Chapters also provide broad historical overviews of each research area and discussions of promising directions for future research. The breadth and depth of coverage on offer in this Handbook make it ideal for seminars on metamemory or metacognition. It would also be a valuable supplement for advanced courses on cognitive psychology, of use especially to graduate students and more seasoned researchers who are interested in exploring metamemory for the first time.

In Speaking, Willem "Pim" Levelt, Director of the Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik, accomplishes the formidable task of covering the entire process of speech production, from constraints on conversational appropriateness to articulation and self-monitoring of speech. Speaking is unique in its balanced coverage of all major aspects of the production of speech, in the completeness of its treatment of the entire speech process, and in its strategy of exemplifying rather than formalizing theoretical issues.

This book brings together the body of empirical findings and theoretical interpretations of the tip of the tongue (TOT) experience – when a well-known or familiar word cannot immediately be recalled. Although research has been published on TOTs for over a century, the experience retains its fascination for both cognitive and linguistic researchers. After a review of various research procedures used to study TOTs, the book offers a summary of attempts to manipulate this rare cognitive experience through cue and prime procedures. Various aspects of the inaccessible target word are frequently available – such as first letter and syllable number – even in the absence of actual retrieval, and the book explores the implications of these bits of target-word information for mechanisms for word storage and retrieval. It also examines: what characteristics of a word make it potentially more vulnerable to a TOT; why words related to the target word (called "interlopers") often come to mind; the recovery process, when the momentarily-inaccessible word is recovered shortly after the TOT is first experienced; and efforts to evaluate individual differences in the likelihood to experience TOTs.

Do perception and action share some of the same cognitive structures? What is the relationship between cognitive processes for sequencing, timing, and error detection in perception and action? Such issues form the basis for this fresh and absorbing study of the perception and production of language and other cognitive skills such as chess and piano playing. The Organization of Perception and Action provides a coherent and innovative synthesis of available data, challenges classical theories, and offers new insights into relations between language, thought, and action. Its broad, interdisciplinary approach and wealth of detailed examples extend from the motor control of typing to the role of attention in perception and action and the flexibility of conscious vs. unconscious processes. Not only researchers, but anyone with a general interest in the cognitive and brain sciences will find in this book new and interesting insights into topics long considered fundamental to psychology and related disciplines.

During the past two decades, there has been a dramatic increase in interest in the study of aging-related changes in cognitive abilities. In this volume researchers from a variety of theoretical perspectives discuss adult age differences in a wide range of cognitive skills. Of special interest is the extent to which aging effects on performance are related to variations in the representation, organization, and utilization of knowledge, broadly defined. Recent research and theory in the field of aging has emphasized the need to examine such processes more closely in order to provide a more complete understanding of aging effects on cognitive behavior.

When the memory retrieval process breaks down, people wonder exactly why and how such a thing occurs. In many cases, failed retrieval is accompanied by a 'tip-of-the-tongue state', a feeling that an unretrieved item is stored in memory. Tip-of-the-tongue states stand at the crossroads of several research traditions within cognitive science. Some research focuses on the nature of the retrieval failure. Other research tries to determine what tip-of-the-tongue states can tell us about the organization of lexical memory - what aspects of a word we can recall when we are otherwise unable to do so. Still other research focuses on the nature of the experience. Each perspective is represented in this book, which presents the best theoretical and empirical work on these subjects. Much of the work is cross-disciplinary, but the topics concern strong phenomenological states of knowing that are not accompanied by recall or recognition of the desired information.