"Horse surname" is not a symptom of senile dementia
Scientists: forgetting the right words does not mean memory problems
The state when the word "turns on the tongue", but a person cannot remember it, is indeed associated with aging, but does not signal impending memory problems, according to American scientists, whose article was published in the journal Psychological Science (Do Age-Related Increases in Tip-of-the-Tongue Experiences Significant Episodic Memory Impediments? – VM).
Moments when it is impossible to remember some well-known word occur in people of all ages, while, as it was believed, in older people they indicate memory problems. Timothy Salthouse (Timothy Salthouse) and Arielle Mandell (Arielle Mandell) from the University of Virginia decided to check whether a person's inability to "catch" the right word is the result of deterioration of episodic memory.
They conducted an experiment in which more than 700 people aged 18 to 99 years participated. Their task was to recall the names of popular places or the names of famous people, a brief description or image of which was offered to them in the tests. At the same time, the subjects said which questions they knew or did not know the answer to, and which ones made them feel the right word literally "on the tip of their tongue."
"There was no evidence of a strong connection between memory and the occurrence of moments when a person fails to remember the right word," the authors say, talking about the conclusions made after testing the subjects. At the same time, they confirmed the connection of such problems with aging: in general, older participants more often could not remember the required names or names than young subjects.
Solthuas and Mandell, relying on the results of their research, argue that the studied phenomenon of the word "spinning on the tongue" should not be considered a signal of impending dementia and memory problems. "Although aging is associated with a low level of episodic memory and more frequent occurrence of cases when a person cannot remember a word, these two phenomena seem to be largely independent of each other," the article says.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru17.10.2013