Featured Scholar:
Stacy Eitel
2002 - 2003 University Scholar
Mentor: Lise Abrams
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
I'm thinking of a name. It begins with an “S”.
Let’s see, is it Samantha? No. Stephanie? Close. Or maybe it is
Tracy? Oh! I know. It’s Stacy—Stacy Eitel. She is a University
Scholar who studies tip-of-the-tongue states and what part of a word needs
to be activated in order for a person to be able to retrieve it.
“The purpose of my experiment was to examine whether reading specific
components of phonology aloud or silently influences word retrieval during
tip-of-the-tongue states,” she says. “Basically, I researched
what part of the tip-of-the-tongue state word needs to be activated in
your mind before you will be able to recall and produce the word you are
looking for.”
As a researcher in Psychology Professor Lise Abrams’ lab, Stacy
presented 84 undergraduates with 80 general knowledge questions and asked
them whether they knew the word the question was referring to, did not
know the word, or were experiencing a tip-of-the-tongue state. Questions,
stimuli and responses were all shown and recorded by computer. Those who
either didn’t know the word in question or were experiencing a tip-of-the-tongue
state were read a list of words that included two phonological primes
intermixed with eight unrelated words. The phonological primes contained
either the first syllable or first phoneme of the tip-of-the-tongue target
word.
“The goal of the research is to help older adults, who rank tip-of-the-tongue
states as one of their most annoying cognitive failures,” Stacy
says. “To aid them, since first syllable primes seem to help people
resolve tip-of-the-tongue-states, they should be taught to make all the
syllable combinations silently to themselves in hope of sparking the retrieval
of the word. For example, if you are trying to remember the word kaleidoscope
and you think it might start with a ‘K’ sound, you can say
in your head: ‘ko’, ‘ki’, ‘k’, ‘ka
or ke,’ which may spark the retrieval of kaleidoscope.”
Stacy’s USP paper won a Best Quantitative Paper award in the 2002-2003
USP Best Paper Competition. She presented her research at the American
Psychological Society’s 15th Annual Convention in Atlanta. After
graduating in December 2002 with a BS in psychology, Stacy joined Teach
for America. This fall, she began her two-year commitment as a sixth grade
math teacher at Jackson Middle School in Houston, TX.
I decided to join Teach for America because I firmly believe
in its mission to close the achievement gap,” she says. “I
also have a strong interest in not only cognitive psychology, but education
and learning methods. I was a remedial math tutor at UF and it always
interested me to see the gaps people had in their math knowledge. I wondered
what had gone awry during their math education. I plan on returning to
graduate school after my commitment to Teach for America to research teaching
methods and teacher efficacy.”
Stacy says her experiences as a USP scholar are helping her in her career
as a teacher. “I learned the value of patience,” she says.
“When something doesn’t work out the way you planned, try
a new tactic and have another go at it. Teaching is very similar in that
regard. Also, presenting my research to others gave me the experience
of speaking in front of large groups, since I have about 25-30 kids per
class.” And if she ever experiences a tip-of-the-tongue-state in
the classroom, Stacy knows just what to do.
“It hasn’t happened to me yet while teaching, but it does
happen to me occasionally at home or elsewhere. I’ve actually used
the techniques I have learned, and it works for me!”
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