Tip-of-the-tongue memory lapses

Are you struggling to recall a word that’s ‘on the tip-of-your-tongue’? If so, you’re not alone.

New University of Michigan research indicates ‘tip-of-the-tongue’ errors happen often to adults aged 65 to 92. In a study of 105 healthy, highly-educated older adults, 61% reported this memory mishap.

The study’s participants completed a checklist of the memory errors made in the past 24 hours, as well as several other tests. About half of them reported making other errors that may be related to absent-mindedness, such as having to re-read a sentence because they forgot what it said, or forgetting where they placed an item.

The findings, which appear in the journal Ageing, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, may help brain-training programs target the memory problems people experience in daily life.

“Right now, many training programs focus on the age differences in memory and thinking that we see in laboratory studies,” senior author, Professor Cindy Lustig, said. “However, those may not translate to the performance failures that are most common in everyday life.”

When people are tested in the lab and have nothing to rely on but their own memories, young adults typically do better than older adults, she added. However, when these studies are conducted in real-world settings, older adults sometimes outperform young adults at things like remembering appointments because they are likely to use memory supports such as calendars, lists and alarms.

“When we looked at how people performed on standard laboratory tests, we found the usual age differences,” she said. “People in their 80s and 90s performed worse than those in their 60s and early 70s.”

Meanwhile, researchers hope that a better understanding of the errors people are still making can improve training program efforts.

“We wanted to identify which errors still occur despite changes people might be making in their environment and routine,” Professor Lustig said. “That’s where it may be especially important to change the person.”

She cautioned that an elderly person occasionally forgetting a name does not mean they are in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias.

“Everybody forgets. However, our findings suggest certain types of memory errors may be especially important to monitor for increases, which then should be discussed with a clinician.”

Have you ever had a ‘tip-of-the-tongue’ moment? Share your thoughts on this study by commenting below.