Eye movements,word familiarity,and vocabulary acquisition

Two experiments examined the effects of word familiarity on word recognition and text comprehension during silent reading. Readers' eye movements were monitored as they read sentences containing words that varied in familiarity as assessed by printed estimates of word frequency, subjective ratings of familiarity, and a multiple‐choice test of meaning knowledge. Effects of word frequency were unaffected by differences in subjective familiarity rating for high frequency words. Differential effects of familiarity rating were observed in low frequency conditions. In addition, processing time on high and low frequency words did not differ when familiarity was held constant for moderately familiar words. Readers spent more initial processing time on novel words than familiar words. Performance on a vocabulary test administered after the reading session demonstrated that readers successfully acquired and retained new word meanings. Finally, reanalysis of word processing time as a function of vocabulary test performance demonstrated a systematic relationship between online processing patterns and memory for novel word meaning.     

The Body and Mind (Including of the Analyst) in the Treatment of a Psychotic State: Some Reflections: Commentary on Paper by Riccardo Lombardi

Riccardo Lombardi's paper is considered from a British (Independent) object relations perspective. Although the paper deals with the experience of shame and its relationship to fantasies about sex and death and how these are experienced (including in the body), shame is also a profoundly object related mental state, perhaps one of the most damaging when suffered in infancy, leading to reflexive functioning. The nature of shame is touched upon and its impact on personality development, and how this is handled in the transference and countertransference by Riccardo Lombardi with his particular patient. Although the patient's struggle to own his own hate is Lombardi's principal focus in the clinical account, this author suggests that Lombardi was attuned primarily to the patient's developmental failings due to the impact of shame and, by working primarily in the countertransference, was able to facilitate growth of certain personality functions for the first time.     

Object Relationships—Symmetry and Asymmetry: Commentary on Paper by Anthony Bass

Current understanding of the process of therapy and development focuses on the interactions between the partners. The interaction is a negotiation of differences and of change. The equilibrium of the relationship is inevitably subject to frequent destabilizations, by virtue of normal developmental processes, life events such as losses, and the divergence of aims as each process unfolds.

The destabilizations are pivotal to the creation of new states. If a newly emerging state is to be advantageous for the development of the infant or the health of the patient, the associated toxic affects have to be tolerated and dealt with openly. If the analyst defensively hides, opportunities for change will be lost and the old patterns will persist. The therapist and patient, like the parent and child, are engaged together in this mutually altering process.