ABSTRACT
The chapters presented in this book raise a number of important issues and questions for future memory research. One theme present across many chapters of this book is the relevance of subjective sensations of memory in the absence of other available information. That is, people can often, in various ways, shapes and forms, have a sense that something relevant to the current situation is in memory although its identity cannot be retrieved. These experiences can range from nagging feelings that something has been forgotten to obsessions with how one knows someone else, as in the butcher-on-the-bus phenomenon described by Alan Brown. The most well-studied manifestation of this is the tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon (when a word feels as though it is right on the verge of access, about to be retrieved, but is not quite accessible yet). However, it is clear from the chapters in this book that there are many other ways in which sensations about one’s own memory can occur during what is otherwise a retrieval failure.
