The tip of the tongue state induced by musical stimuli

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the phenomenon of knowing that a melody is familiar but being unable to name it. The occurrence and nature of such a "Tip of the Tongue" (TOT) state induced by musical stimuli was investigated by translating Brown and McNeill's (1966) procedure and findings to a musical setting. Transformations of familiar melodies were used as the stimuli. Twenty musically inexperienced and musically experienced subjects were required to perform seven tasks which tested the occurrence of a TOT state and the type of information available. A TOT state occurred with both types of subjects and a range of information was available. Subjects possessed knowledge of the rhythm of the melody, later parts of the melody and the category of the melody. A surprising and unique finding was that a systematic progression of occurrence of recalled information existed. This is a possible line of investigation for future research.