This Video Explains Why Words Get Stuck on the Tip of the Tongue.
This is one of the most annoying annoyances in life: when a word gets stuck on the tip of your tongue, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t remember that actor’s name or that vocabulary word. According to SciShow, for most of us it happens once a week, and this is how it happens.
According to the video, learning new information activates a number of clusters of neurons in our brain. New information passes through complex clusters (which process the meaning of the information) to simpler ones (which process the phonology or sound of information).
The tip of the tongue state is what happens when the sense clusters light up, but the sound clusters are not fully activated because the signal in your brain is taking a detour instead of following the correct path. This is why it is often possible to describe the characteristics of a word, but not the entire word.
For example, let’s say you just can’t think of one guy as an actor. You know, the dude that was in Fraser ? His name is on the tip of your tongue and you can picture his face perfectly, which means the complex clusters in your brain are activated, but those simple clusters just don’t fire right, and instead of David Hyde Pearce, you think Hyde Park. Or Pierce Brosnan.
In fact, it gets worse when people try to help you too, SciShow explains. They don’t know how your brain processes information, so their “help” can be confusing. What really helps is focusing on the sounds that come to mind when you try to come up with a word.
See the video for details.