Naming famous people: An examination of tip-of-the-tongue phenomena in aphasia and Alzheimer's disease

Confrontation naming of famous faces was studied in 33 individuals with aphasia (anomic, Broca's, and conduction) and 27 individuals with mild 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 information was provided for many of the recognized faces by all subject groups. Conduction and Broca's groups showed strongest evidence of TOT, performing above chance on initial letter identification. There was little evidence of word-form knowledge in anomic and AD groups.