Difficulties in Pronouncing Words

Nothing is more annoying than having a word at the tip of your tongue and cannot say it. It is there in a corner of our mind and yet it cannot be said. We know its meaning, its spelling and other words that resemble it and yet we could not articulate it. American psychologists have an explanation for this curious phenomenon. In order to keep our mind in tip top condition we should exercise it.

It is not much fun not being able to pronounce a word known especially when it occurs during an animated conversation or during a working meeting. Frustrating and even embarrassing! Therefore, psychologists and linguists are very much interested in finding the cause of this phenomenon. Scientists generally believe that this problem is a result from a lack of communication between the intellectual brain areas of evoking the idea of the word and those in charge to regain form.

Find the best transmission

Two American psychologists, Lori E. James of the University of California at Los Angeles and Deborah M. Burke of Pomona College have now confirmed this mechanism from both experiments. The first study consisted of 72 volunteers, of who half were students and the rest were elderly while the second involved 36 participants of different ages.

Problems of transmission seem to be the origin of words back in the depths of our brain and contrary to what the experts previously thought, words nearly pronounced in structure, reduces the intensity of the phenomenon in reviving the network of brain connections.

In Anglo-Saxon, the word "abdicate" appears to be among the words most likely to stay on the tip of the tongue. Thus, researchers have asked this question to three groups of volunteers: "What word means renouncing to the throne?"

The first group had no preparation and persons gave a more or less successful response.

The second group after having read a list of words sounding similar to the word "abdicate" like "abstract" gave a more important answer.

The third group had to read words that had no relation to the word. This group found it more difficult to answer.

Read and do crossword puzzles

The second experiment also revealed that when participants were unable to spontaneously express a word, the pronunciation of terms helped them find it. This could explain why a word lost in memory suddenly returns. At random, in a conversation or a lecture or after watching television we meet another term referring to its structure. To protect against the missing words, it leaves us to enrich our vocabulary because we forget the words little more than customary handled every day. There's nothing like having an active social life, reading and crosswords to help keep our brains alert so that we can communicate easily with others.

Source:

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/faq/problems-remembering.html