Tip of the Tongue States Increase Under Evaluative Observation

We tested the frequent assumption that the difficulty of word retrieval increases when a speaker is being observed and evaluated. We modified the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) so that participants believed that its evaluative observation components continued throughout the duration of a subsequent word retrieval task, and measured participants’ reported tip of the tongue (TOT) states. Participants in this TSST condition experienced more TOTs than participants in a comparable, placebo TSST condition in which there was no suggestion of evaluative observation. This experiment provides initial evidence confirming the assumption that evaluative observation by a third party can be disruptive to word retrieval. We interpret our findings by proposing an extension to a well-supported theoretical model of TOTs.