8 “R4”
On the boundary between “R3” and “R4” we learn to relate in both to the differences in our ways of functioning. It seems that by a certain deliberate move of our mind we affect “R3” so as to display in it properties which were allowed previously to go unnoticed. Becoming aware of these makes “R4” into a separate entity — one which we may now talk about and study further. This we shall do in stages. Generally speaking, we need to integrate with all the components we put together to make “R3” one new mental component which gives each word we are looking at a less fleeting quality and that enables us to retain it more easily. This additional mental energy we called an ogden.* It is the energy which substitutes for the short-term memory needed in “R3” — which holds on to words until the meaning of statements reveals itself — a long-term memory needed to keep what has been offered verbally in one’s mind forever. It requires a slightly different presence in the act of reading for ogdens to be associated with what one reads. Call it attention or scrutiny or watchfulness, it certainly imposes a different use of oneself as one’s eyes scan the lines of a text. A kind of “mental shovel” that picks up each word and puts it in a preselected place where the mind can go and find it again where it is associated with other words and also functionally connected to the backdrops made of images, associations and to lightings which can be triggered simultaneously. The energy of the ogden spent *
cf. The Common Sense of Teaching Foreign Languages (1976) p.9
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