Hamilton, ON. April 1, 2008 – If you are struggling to retrieve
a word that you are certain is on the tip of your tongue, or
trying to perfect a slapshot that will send your puck flying
into a hockey net, or if you keep stumbling over the same
sequence of notes on the piano, be warned: you might be
unconsciously creating a pattern of failure, a new study
reveals. The research appears today in The Quarterly Journal of
Experimental Psychology. Karin Humphreys, assistant professor in
McMaster University’s Faculty of Science, and Amy Beth Warriner,
an undergraduate student in the Department of Psychology,
Neuroscience & Behaviour, suggest that most errors are repeated
because the very act of making a mistake, despite receiving
correction, constitutes the learning of that mistake. Humphreys
says the research came about as a result of her own experiences
of repeatedly getting into a tip-of-the-tongue (or TOT) state on
particular words. “This can be incredibly frustrating – you know
you know the word, but you just c