A “Tip-of-the-Fingers” Experience American Sign Language (ASL) users sometimes have a “tip-of-the-fingers” experience when they are sure they know a sign but can’t retrieve it. During a TOT experience, people are often able to remember the first letter or sound of the word they’re struggling to remember. Similarly, ASL users tend to remember the hand shape, which appears as the signer begins to make the sign, rather than later parts of the sign, like the hand movement. For words that are finger-spelled, ASL users were more likely to recall the first letters than later letters (Thompson & others, 2005).

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