Tapping Fingers May Help Recall Words: Cognitive Sciences Study in France

Struggling to remember a familiar word? A recent study published in Cognitive Sciences from France suggests a simple solution: tap your index fingers on a surface. Researchers found that participants who tapped while trying to recall a word experienced the "tip-of-the-tongue" phenomenon less frequently than those who remained still. The experiment, involving 90 participants, compared recall with and without the tapping gesture. The results indicated that tapping facilitated quicker word retrieval. This is attributed to the simultaneous activation of brain regions associated with language and movement. The study suggests that when lexical retrieval is challenging, the gesture reduces cognitive load, freeing up mental space. So, next time you're struggling to find the right word, try tapping your fingers – it might just do the trick!