During Spring Break of my sophomore year (2012) I had my first job interview. It was for an internship with a financial firm in New York City and my dad knew one of the partners, so I was feeling very confident going into it. I had 4 interviews that day, but I most vividly remember the first one, which was with a partner named Dave. After the typical “tell me about yourself” and “walk me through your resume,” Dave asked me some brainteasers and mental math questions. I nailed all of them and was feeling great. Then he asked, “What is the name of the president on the hundred dollar bill?” I exclaimed, “that’s easy, it’s…umm…hold on a second, its on the tip of my tongue.” After struggling to remember for about a minute he told me that it was Benjamin Franklin. I knew it, but under the pressure I just couldn’t recall it, even though it felt so close. It was also a trick question, because Benjamin Franklin was never president. Had I recalled his name I most likely would not have remembered this fact. Despite my misstep, Dave and the other interviewers seemed to like me and I was offered the internship.

To answer the questions in that interview I had to use memory, which is a topic we have been studying in class. There are three types of memory systems: sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. The question I was asked related to declarative memory, which is a type of long-term memory containing information that is conscious and known. More specifically, it involved a type of declarative memory called semantic memory, which contains general knowledge, such as language and information learned in formal education. In retrieving information from long-term memories, we use either recall or recognition. In recall, memories are retrieved with few or no external cues, while recognition involves looking at or hearing information and matching it to what is already in memory. The question I was asked was a recall question. When I felt like I was so close to getting the answer but couldn’t retrieve it I was experiencing the tip of the tongue phenomenon. This retrieval failure is best overcome by forgetting about what you are trying to retrieve. Even though you forget about it the brain continues to work on retrieval and later the word will simply pop into your head. I didn’t have the luxury of simply forgetting about who was on the hundred dollar bill during my interview, but I’m sure if they hadn’t told me I would have remembered soon after I left the office.

Source: Course textbook (Ciccarelli Custom Edition for PSU)