system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What is happening in our brain when we are TRYING to recall something?

My wife told me she watched a stand-up comedian recently but couldn't remember their name. She said it was "something German-sounding". I knew exactly which comedian she was referring to (I could picture them and their routines) but couldn't recall their exact name. I ran through a series of "German-sounding" names in my head, eventually landing on the correct name - but what was happening before I got there?
gpt
What you are trying to do is a type of memory retrieval that refers to relearning the information that has already been learned in the past but is not remembered. People may not be able to recall but they know that they have learned this before. Relearning shows improvement in retrieval of the information as it strengthens neuronal connections.

There are 6 predominantly involved in recall and recognition work in our brain...

1. The Prefrontal cortex is related to the retrieval attempt.
2. The Hippocampal and Para-Hippocampal areas of MTL are related to conscious recollection.
3. The Anterior cingulate cortex is related to response selection.
4. The Posterior midline area including the posterior cingulate is related to imagery.
5. The inferior parietal cortex is related to spatial awareness.
6. The Cerebellum, especially on the left which is related to self-initiated retrieval

The phenomenon of your situation refers to the failure to recall a word from memory which is combined with the feeling that retrieval is imminent. There may be a partial recall in this case. There is a perception of a wide gap between the knowledge of a specific word or subject and being able to retrieve the names involving said subject or the word. People sometimes recall other features of the target word such as its first letter or the words that have a similar meaning.

Two theories have been given by scientists to explain this phenomenon. The first is the direct-access perspective, according to which the memory is not strong enough to recall but it is strong enough to trigger partial recall. The second is the inferential perspective which states that the state of partial recall occurs when the subject can infer knowledge of the target word but is not able to join the pieces of information together usually because those pieces do not exist in the memory. Also called the tip-of the tongue phenomenon. 

Hope that helps...