How does the process of remembering something when it’s on the ‘tip of your tongue’ work?
In: Biology
there is two level of retrieval in your memory. You can either recall a memory, or you can recall the existance of a memory.
For instance, if you plan to go somewhere, you don’t need to visualise the path to be able to tell you can reach your destination. You are just aware that you know the way, you will be aware of the way when the times come.
Sometimes, your have a memory, yiu know you have a memory, you cannot just access it right now, because your brain doesn’t know how to access it. Our understanding of memory (and the brain in general) is slim at best, but how it seem to work is that your memory works by context, and you can recall memory by putting your brain in the same context in which it was when the memory was created.
If you have6a word on the tip of your mouth, you know that you know the word you are looking for, but cannot access it in your brain. and the best way to recall it is to think and speak other words related to it, anything that you “fell” is “close” even if it seems weird at the time, your brain is build on weird contextual associations and most of them are unconscious, but they will help your memory locate that damn word
Adding to the other comment, one thing your brain does to try and help remember things, is to block out extraneous information that might be, well, extra. Sometimes we end up blocking the thing we were trying to remember, making it really difficult to recall. I recently couldn’t remember the name “Tom Cruise” for a while. This will keep happening until you stop trying and your brain eventually stops blocking it out. That’s why you suddenly can have those “aha” moments an hour later.
The Reverse Effect or, “The Law of Reversed Effect states; “The greater the conscious effort, the less the subconscious response” or understood another way “Whenever the will (conscious mind) and imagination (subconscious) are in conflict, the imagination (subconscious) always wins.””
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