Ancona? Aha, that's her name. Tip-of-the-tongue-experiences

We often have words on the tips of our tongues: the beginning of a poem, the title of a novel, or simply a name. TOTs are experiences that occur after the failed retrieval of a particular name. The article focuses on TOT experiences rather than the mechanisms underpinning them. Some these philosophers have tried to reduce TOT experiences to more common states, with some considering these experiences to be beliefs about one’s state of knowledge, and still others considering them feelings about one’s state of knowledge. These two latter views are not mutually exclusive; indeed, one might hold a mixed theory, according to which the TOT is a feeling that depends constitutively on a belief. In what follows, I will first argue against the idea that beliefs are a constitutive feature of TOTs and hence against both the pure and the mixed belief theories; next, I will address the feeling theory. Finally, I will defend a pluralist theory of TOT experiences