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Related Concept Videos

Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon01:10

Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon

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The tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon is a cognitive experience characterized by a temporary inability to retrieve specific information from memory despite having a strong feeling of knowing the information. Although individuals cannot access the target word or detail, they frequently recall related elements, such as its initial letter, syllable count, or context. This partial retrieval often causes frustration, as one might recognize a familiar face or know that a name starts with a specific...
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 1, 2026

A Dual Task Procedure Combined with Rapid Serial Visual Presentation to Test Attentional Blink for Nontargets
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The target effect: visual memory for unnamed search targets.

Mark D Thomas1, Carrick C Williams

  • 1a Psychology , Mississippi State University , Mississippi State, MS , USA.

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (2006)
|April 2, 2014
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Search targets are better remembered than distractors, even with less viewing time. This superior visual memory for search targets stems from distinct cognitive processes influencing how they are represented.

Keywords:
Eye movementsTarget memoryVisual memoryVisual search

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Visual Perception
  • Memory Studies

Background:

  • Search targets are often recalled better than distractors, even with shorter viewing durations.
  • This phenomenon may be influenced by pre-search categorical identification and the goal-oriented nature of target acquisition.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the independent contributions of categorical information and goal-directed search to long-term visual memory for search targets.
  • To determine if superior memory for search targets persists even when categorical information is ambiguous.

Main Methods:

  • Participants engaged in either a predefined category search or a unique-object search task.
  • Visual memory for search targets and distractors was assessed after the search tasks.
  • Experimental conditions manipulated the clarity of target category definitions.

Main Results:

  • Enhanced memory for search targets was observed compared to distractors, irrespective of viewing time.
  • Superior target memory persisted even in the ambiguously defined search condition.
  • Distractors were sometimes viewed longer than targets, yet were remembered less effectively.

Conclusions:

  • Search targets possess qualitatively different memory representations compared to distractor objects.
  • The goal-directed nature of a search task significantly influences the formation of long-term visual memory.
  • Decision-making processes during visual search play a critical role in memory encoding.