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Tip-of-the-tongue states in Hebrew–English bilinguals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2001

Tamar H. Gollan  and
Nina B. Silverberg
Tamar H. Gollan
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego, CA
Nina B. Silverberg
Affiliation:
Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
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Abstract

Tip-of-the-tongue states (TOTs) in proficient Hebrew–English bilinguals were compared to those of age-matched monolinguals. Monolinguals retrieved words in English, and bilinguals retrieved words from both languages. Results showed an increased TOT rate in bilinguals. However, bilinguals demonstrated comparable rates of spontaneous resolution, and similar ability to access partial information about target words. Interestingly, bilinguals named the same number of targets as monolinguals when naming an item in either language was counted as a correct response. Besides bilingualism, other factors that predicted TOT rate included word frequency (only for bilinguals), and age (younger participants had more TOTs). Unexpectedly, TOTs for Hebrew targets were not characterized by increased access to grammatical gender and number of syllables relative to control states, thus contrasting notably with TOTs for Italian and English targets respectively. We discuss these results in terms of their relevance for constraining models of bilingual lexical access and models of TOT.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , April 2001 , pp. 63 - 83
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

This research was supported in part by Training Grant DC01409 from NIDCD to the National Center for Neurogenic Communications Disorders, by a McDonnell-Pew grant (both at the University of Arizona), and by Training Grant DC00041-06, also from NIDCD, to the Center for Research on Language at the University of California, San Diego. We would like to thank Judith F. Kroll and Wendy Francis for valuable comments on an earlier version of this article, and for their assistance in carrying out this research we also thank Morton Ann Gernsbacher and Gilead Morahg (UWisconsin-Madison), Merrill F. Garrett (UAZ), and Shmuel Bolotsky (UMASS).