NAMING FAMOUS PEOPLE - AN EXAMINATION OF TIP-OF-THE-TONGUE PHENOMENA IN APHASIA AND ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE

Confrontation naming of famous faces was studied in 33 individuals wit h aphasia (anemic, Broca's, and conduction) and 27 individuals with mi ld or moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD). Naming failures were examined for evidence of tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state by probing semantic and word-form knowledge (initial letter and word shape). Basic semantic i nformation was provided for many of the recognized faces by all subjec t groups. Conduction and Broca's groups showed strongest evidence of T OT, performing above chance on initial letter identification. There wa s little evidence of word-form knowledge in anemic and AD groups.