Printing effects on tip-of-the-tongue states in Farsi-English bilinguals

The tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon, the inability to immediately retrieve a word one desires, was studied in bilingual Farsi-English-speaking adults. One question was whether insufficient activation or increased inhibition underlie TOT states in bilinguals. Another was whether bilinguals have common or separate lexicons for their two languages. Participants heard a definition in either Farsi or English followed by either a Farsi or English prime word related in meaning or sound, or nor at all related, to the target word. Participants supplied the target word that best fit the definition. Similar-sound primes increased TOTs for English definitions and targets, with a trend for more correct responses as well, suggesting that the similar-sound prime word facilitates rather than inhibits retrieval, supporting the transmission deficit hypothesis. Primes had the same effect for same and different language conditions, suggesting that both Farsi and English map onto a single lexicon, supporting the single-store model of bilingual memory.