ABSTRACT
Someone asks me what is her name. I feel I know it. As we often say, her name is on the tip of my tongue. I can’t say it now, but I am sure that in a few moments it will come back.
Sometimes I do not make efforts to recall. I sit back and let the question linger on me. One minute later, the answer comes out. It is as if the obstacles occluding it are gone all together and I have done nothing to remove them. I shout: “Ancona!”. I feel that that the word clicks. Yet, generally, I do make efforts and try to recall the name by relying on some cues. In fact, I do not have a total blank. I remember something and I try to fill the gap by deliberately retrieving information I have about the bearer of the name and some other general information. If there is no general information to retrieve, I may also go through the alphabet letter by letter, until I find the letter that helps me to fill the gap. Or, I recall in some way how the word sounds – where is the pitch, whether it is an open mouth word, and so on - and search, until I find it. Again, the word clicks. It may also happen that I give one answer and immediately afterwards I acknowledge that I was wrong and correct myself. For example, after saying “Ancona”, I rejoin “No, wait a minute. It is D’Ancona”. Now it clicks!
In all these cases, first I have the feeling that I am about to bring to consciousness a piece of knowledge I possess concerning a lexical item, and then, when the lexical item pops out, I have a feeling of rightness. Of course, I may get the name wrong: my feeling of rightness does not entail infallibility.
Call the experience before retrieval tip of the tongue (TOT) experience and the experience after retrieval CLICK experience. My question is what kind of experience they are. Are they beliefs, memories, emotions, gut feelings, or what?