Abstract: The “tip of the tongue” (TOT) refers to a state in which one cannot recall a familiar word but can recall words of similar form and meaning in speech production, which is common in our daily life, especially for the old speakers. It remains unclear about the cognitive mechanism underlying the TOTs in older adults speaking. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the effect of aging on TOTs’ occurrence and resolution in young and older adults using a two-step approach, within a language-specific perspective, while controlling the influence of individual differences in general inhibitory ability. The experiment adopted a 2 age group (young vs. older adults) × 2 career congruity (congruent vs. incongruent) × 3 orthographic and phonological relatedness (orthographically and phonologically related, phonologically related, and unrelated) mixed factors design. Forty young and forty-two older adults participated in the experiment, and they were required to respond as rapidly as possible upon seeing a picture. If participants were in a TOT state, a prime name would be presented, and participants rated how easily the prime could be pronounced using a 3-point scale. After rating the prime name, participants were presented with the target picture again, and re-attempted to retrieve the target name. Again, participants were asked to judge whether they could speak out the target name, or were still having a TOT state. Four types of response were calculated as dependent variables, including GOT (Got the word), TOT, FOK (Feeling of knowing), and DK (Don't know). The proportions of semantic and phonological retrieval deficit were calculated based on the two-step approach proposed by Gollan and Brown (2006). The proportion of TOT resolution was also measured, i.e., the number of GOT response after TOT occurrence divided by total number of TOTs occurrence. Meanwhile, a Stroop color-word task was performed after the TOT resolution task to assess individual differences in general inhibitory capacity, in which participants had to judge the ink color of the stimulus as accurate and fast as possible. In the data analyses, the Stroop effect was calculated by subtracting response latencies in the incongruent condition from those in the congruent condition, and it was treated as a covariate in the mixed ANCOVAs analysis. After cancelling out the individual differences in inhibitory ability, the results showed that, compared with young adults, older adults not only produced more TOTs but also resolved fewer TOTs. Besides, older adults had greater phonological retrieval deficit than young adults during spoken word production, whereas both groups exhibited similar semantic retrieval deficit. More importantly, the phonological priming effect was modulated by career congruity in older adults, but it was irrespective of this factor in young adults. Taken together, our findings indicated that in speaking the transmission deficit between semantics and phonology increasing with age may lead to retrieval failures of persons’ names.

Key words: TOT, phonological retrieval deficit, inhibition deficit hypothesis, transmission deficit hypothesis, two-step approach

摘要： 舌尖效应年老化机制受到语言特异性因素的影响。本研究把Stroop效应作为协变量，在统计分析控制个体抑制能力的基础上，采用两阶段范式考察舌尖效应产生和解决中词汇提取的年老化机制。结果发现：（1）老年人的舌尖效应产生率和语音提取缺陷均显著高于青年人，语义提取缺陷年龄差异不显著；（2）老年人的舌尖效应解决率和语音促进效应量均显著低于青年人；（3）语义启动影响老年人的舌尖效应解决，而对青年人没有影响。上述结果表明，舌尖效应产生和解决的年老化均与语音提取衰退有关，与语义提取衰退无关，支持语言特异性衰退的观点。

关键词: TOT, 语音提取缺陷, 抑制缺陷假说, 传输缺陷假说, 两阶段范式