My brain seems to have much in common with my cellphone. Sometimes I have all my intellectual bars firing, but off and on my transmission lines get bogged down—especially when I’m trying to remember the name of someone whose face I recognize but who I haven’t seen in a while.
I know the face and I know, or used to know the name, but it’s just not coming to me.
This happens all the time when I’m watching a Netflix series filled with cast members that I haven’t thought about for a while.
Deep in my cerebral cortex I know who they are, it’s just that I can’t immediately recall their names. Then suddenly, minutes or even hours later, the name will pop into my head.
I admit my attention span has always been spotty, unless it’s a topic of great importance, such as Game 7 of the NBA championships.
In those instances, I have no trouble remembering the names of the players, even those who I haven’t seen on the court in ages. Just don’t ask me what I had for breakfast that day!
My dilemma in remembering names, outside of sports, is complicated by the fact that my wife has full control of the television remote. So, most nights I resign myself to watching whatever series she chooses, usually filled with the faces of actors I recognize, but whose names escape me.
Forgetting stuff can be depressing, but I’m far from alone in my predicament. Millions of Americans suffer from the same dilemma, a phenomenon known as Tip of the Tongue (or its acronym TOT, which may be easier for some to remember). Tip of the Tongue is a frustrating condition where you actually know the word but it takes a while to retrieve it. Psychologists call this moment by its proper name, lethologica but, as I’ll never remember that word, I’m sticking with TOT.
The inability to retrieve words tends to increase with age because your brain is filled with more information. In most cases, it’s a failure to retrieve the information in a timely manner, not the absence of knowledge.
If you haven’t thought of someone or something for years, it takes more time for the answer to bob to the surface of your cerebral cortex and make its way out of your mouth. In short, the brain works overtime to close the gap between retrieval of information and producing speech.
Most people experience TOT several times a week, but the frequency increases with age, which can cause a lot of angst. Is this the beginning of memory loss? Dementia?
In some instances that may be true, but most of the time it’s exactly the opposite. As we grow older, we know a lot and the brain has to sift through more and more data to provide the right answer.
There are certain tricks that are useful in retrieving facts. For instance, I run through the alphabet and ‘ding,’ a light comes on when I hit a certain vowel or consonant.
But there are TOT times when I have only a foggy recollection of the first letter of a name and full recollection remains illusive. Then, out of nowhere, the answer pops up long after I stop thinking about it.
Experts say this mental lag time is common and known as Transmission Deficit Hypothesis, or as I call it, TDH, as I’ll never remember Transmission Deficit Hypothesis.
TDH, simply put, is like a weak signal strength. The brain has difficulty connecting the meaning of the word with the sound of the word—sort of like a phone call that breaks up as you’re driving along a stretch of road with poor cell service.
Or perhaps you can think of your brain as a library. If Tip-of-the-Tongue words are rarely used, they stay on a back shelf and must be dusted off. The best sellers, words and thoughts that routinely come to mind, are right there for the picking.
Retrieval of words can be delayed by stress or anxiety or by simply lack of focus—usually my downfall. To reduce instances of TOT, I’ve decided the best path is to reduce my exposure to TV series and head down to the basement where I can stick to more mindless and less stressful programming—like sports.
Dave Dunleavy was a longtime reporter and columnist for The News-Times in Danbury. He lives in Kent. His column “View from the Front Porch” runs monthly.