Middle-aged people’s perceptions of name recall failures

The retrieval of proper names in memory is particularly prone to failure. Several authors have suggested that being unable to retrieve someone’s name is likely to be an embarrassing or irritating experience. However, empirical data showing that name recall failures actually elicit embarrassment and annoyance are particularly sparse. In an online questionnaire study, participants were asked about their negative feelings associated with the occurrence of retrieval failures. The strongest negative feeling reported was annoyance rather than embarrassment. The highest rated factor favouring recall failures was mental fatigue. We also asked participants whether they interpreted name recall failures as an early-warning sign of Alzheimer’s disease. Participants did not believe this to be the case. In the second part of the study, participants responded to questions related to the strategies they use to resolve recall failures. Contextual strategies were reported more frequently than other strategies, such as searching for biographical details about the target person or searching for phonological or orthographic information about the name to be retrieved. Moreover, participants considered that retrieving a name by themselves was more likely to help them recall the name later than using external aids. This result suggests that people are aware of the self-resolution effect.