自然情境下舌尖效应的认知年老化——日记研究

舌尖效应是一种话到嘴边却说不出来的单词提取失败现象(Tip-of-the-Tongue, TOT)。本研究通过TOT回溯问卷和日记记录方法对青年人和老年人进行了为期28天的追踪, 考察了自然情境下舌尖效应认知年老化的发生特点及机制。结果表明：(1)自然情境下TOT存在认知老化现象, 老年人TOT发生频率比青年人更高; (2) TOT发生时, 个体存在替代词和语义相关信息的提取, 且青年人比老年人产生了更强烈的兴奋感和疲惫感的元认知体验; (3) TOT发生后目标词几乎都能获得提取, 老年人TOT的解决时间比青年人长, 但其解决率无年龄差异。TOT的解决时间受目标词熟悉性、是否存在替代词和个体主观体验的认知和元认知因素影响。(4)对TOT认知状态和元认知状态的记录会影响后续发生TOT的状态, 且延长其解决时间, 表明被试付出了更多努力和时间解决TOT。TOT的认知状态和元认知状态的因素都对TOT的解决时间产生了影响。

Aging of the tip of the tongue in daily life: A diary study

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. The perspectives of cognitive (how linguistic properties and general cognitive abilities influence aging of TOT) and meta-cognitive (how the meta-cognitive evaluations of TOT influence TOT’s processing) have been proposed to explain the aging of TOT. However, little research has addressed this question in Chinese. The present study aims to examine how (a) individual characteristics (i.e., emotion, age) influence daily TOTs and (b) the interplay of cognitive factors and meta-cognitive factors influence daily TOTs.A sample of 67 participants (36 old adults, 13 males, age ranges: 60~81 years, M = 66.91, SD = 6.85; 31 young adults, 16 males, age ranges: 18~25 years, M = 21.50, SD = 2.43) filled in a quantitative and qualitative diary for 4 weeks (including weekends) to investigate their experience of TOTs. The questions and measurements used in our diary questionnaire included cognitive and meta-cognitive characteristics of TOT in speech production.Results indicated that the old adults generated more TOTs and took longer time to retrieve target words in successful production than the young adults in daily life, which confirmed our hypothesis that there was an aging of speech production in Chinese. Furthermore, when TOT happened, both old and young people could successfully retrieve alternative words and (or) semantically related information, but less phonologically related information, which supported transmission deficit hypothesis about aging of speech production. For the meta-cognitive experience, we found that young adults experienced higher degree of excitement and fatigueness than the old adults. In addition, the resolution time of TOTs was influenced by factors of target words familiarity, the presence of alternates and the comfort level when TOT happened. The assessments on TOT’s cognitive and meta-cognitive states affected the resolution time of the subsequent TOTs, reflecting that participants took more efforts and time to resolve TOTs after evaluating their meta-cognitive states. We suggest that TOT is the products of cognitive and meta-cognitive processes in Chinese speech production.