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Electrophysiological correlates of the lexical-semantic network in young adults during Tip-of-the-Tongue states
Poster Session A, Wednesday, September 30, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm, Wangari Maathai
This poster is part of the Sandbox Series.
Marie Couvreu1, Marina Laganaro1; 1NCCR Evolving Language, University of Geneva
To produce a specific word, semantic activation spreads through the mental lexicon until the target one is selected (Collins & Loftus, 1975). However, sometimes this activation fails to propagate sufficiently due to various factors, rendering the selection of the intended word (temporarily) impossible, as in the Tip of the Tongue (ToT) phenomenon. Several accounts have been proposed to explain ToT states, including the transmission deficit hypothesis (Burke et al., 1991), and the inhibition deficit hypothesis (Brown, 1979; Roediger, 1974). A complementary account comes from a network-based perspective, proposing that the organisation of the lexical-semantic system itself can impact word access, as the number of associates (semantic richness) and the prototypicality of the links between the target word and its associates (Krethlow et al., 2020), both in impaired population (Lampe et al., 2021) and in ToT states. The continuous free word association task is widely used to investigate the structure of the lexical-semantic network (De Deyne et al., 2013). Previous work using this task associated with a naming task of low frequency items (Couvreu & Laganaro, 2026) revealed that the lexical-semantic organisation differs between a ToT state compared to an “accessible state”, in terms of semantic richness (number of associates), associative strength, and network homogeneity across participants. In terms of brain activation, previous studies found that the electrophysiological activity in a picture-naming task (Lampe et al., 2021; Piai & Zheng, 2019) is modulated by the lexical-semantic structure of a word (e.g. semantic richness). Electroencephalographic (EEG) studies on ToTs have reported distinct neurophysiological patterns between ToT and “accessible” states, although without considering the structure of the lexical-semantic network (Bloom et al., 2018; Maril et al., 2005; Shen et al., 2022). Hence, to the best of our knowledge, the neurophysiological activity in ToT states while accounting for the lexical-semantic network structure at this precise moment has not been investigated. Here we build on the behavioural findings on the lexical-semantic system in a ToT state (Couvreu & Laganaro, 2026) and fill the gap in the EEG/ERP studies on ToTs by combining the investigation of the lexical-semantic network during ToT states in comparison with “accessible” states using a picture-naming task and a continuous free word association task with electroencephalography (EEG). We are currently recruiting 30 French-speaking neurotypical young adults who perform the picture naming task that has proven to elicit ToT states in our behavioural study, combined with a continuous free word association task. We plan to conduct amplitude and microstate analyses to identify whether and how the electrophysiological correlates associated with lexical-semantic processing differ between a ToT state and an accessible state. We will focus on the time window following picture onset in the picture-naming task and preceding the production of each of the first three associates in the continuous free word association task. Depending on the results obtained, source localisation analyses may also be performed.
Topic Areas: Meaning: Lexical Semantics, Language Production