From the Washington Post:
Such mental blocks often involve the failure to retrieve a proper noun, the experts said. A proper noun is like a label: It represents a more complex concept. Patients with recurring, pathological problems retrieving a label are said to suffer from anomia. But it’s something that happens to everyone occasionally.
Diamond said retrieval failures often involve new information. In Perry’s case, he’s been governor of Texas for more than a decade but has been running for president for only a few months.
“We are doing so much now, we’re multitasking perhaps at a higher degree than ever before,” Diamond said. “We get into work, and we’re handling e-mails, we’re going to all the Web sites, we’re processing more information now than ever before. We’re asking more of our brains than evolution ever prepared us to handle. So every now and then we just drop the ball.”
I've definitely had it happen before. First off, names. Forget me remembering someone's name. Face, yes. To an uncanny degree I will remember the face of someone I talked to ten years ago at a party. Their name, however, forget it. Even if I just met you, gone in 3 seconds. Even if I've known you for ten years, if I have to introduce you to someone, your name is gone. I've also had it happen when you're answering a question, either to a reporter or even an interview - all of a sudden you have no idea what question you're answering. Then again, I'm not running for President :)
