Imagination- the process of transformation and generation of new images on
based on past experience, which are both products of creative activity and prototypes for it.
Imagination is not limited to figurative thinking. Thinking strives to know as best and more accurately as possible and to reflect reality. Imagination is to come up with something that does not exist. A person, based on knowledge and experience, can imagine a picture of something that he has never actually seen. Imagination is the more fruitful and valuable the more it transforms reality, deviates from it, but still takes into account its essential aspects and most significant features.
The creation of imaginary images goes through two main stages. At the first stage, a kind of division of impressions, or existing ideas, into their component parts occurs. In other words, the first stage of the formation of imaginary images is characterized analysis impressions received from reality or ideas formed as a result of previous experience. During this analysis, there is abstraction object, i.e. it seems to us isolated from other objects, while abstraction of parts of the object also occurs. In any case, operations are performed with abstracted images that can be characterized as synthesis. These operations, which constitute the essence of the synthesizing activity of the imagination, are the second stage in the formation of imaginative images.
Fantasy techniques:
Agglutination - the creation of a new image by attaching in the imagination parts or properties of one object to another (eg, mermaid, centaur),
Schematization (involves discarding some elements, eg, metro map). Reasons for schematization: conscious distraction from non-essential, or secondary, aspects of the object; forgetting any unimportant details or parts; as a result of an incomplete, superficial perception of the object.
Emphasis (exaggeration of one feature, property, etc., caricatures - accentuate the nose, hump),
Miniaturization and hyperbolization (changes in values, e.g., in fairy tales - giant heroes).
Types of imagination: passive (images of the imagination are spontaneously transformed, emerging in front of the imagination, and are not formed themselves, e.g. dreams, daydreams, hallucinations) and active (images are consciously formed and transformed in accordance with the goals of human creative activity). Active imagination can be: recreative (based on a hint, description, diagram) and creative (the entire image is composed by the subject himself).
Ribot's diagram of the development of imagination (19th century): with increasing experience, imagination grows, which then slows down and begins to fade. Three stages:
1) rapid development of imagination in children (games, fairy tales),
2) rationality begins to work (our criticality), as a result of which the growth of imagination slows down (but fantasy is still there),
3) the imagination is imbued with rationality and they merge into a single
function, creativity declines.
Qualities of imagination:
Strength (distinctness of images),
Latitude (number of new images),
Criticality (closeness to reality).
1. Gelbronner method, method of half-drawn drawings;
2. blurry photos;
3.method of linguistic ingenuity (3 words are given, you need to come up with sentences where these words are together. Points are given);
4. Rorschach method.
Different people have imagination in different areas. The current role in determining the direction in which the development of imagination takes place is played by the orientation of the individual (interests). The importance of imagination is great in artistic creativity, scientific creativity, and experimental research.
Types of imagination
by degree of volitional effort by degree of activity
intentional unintentional active passive
26. General characteristics of imagination
Imagination plays a huge role in human life. Thanks to imagination, a person creates, intelligently plans and manages his activities. Almost all human material and spiritual culture is a product of people's imagination and creativity. Imagination also plays a huge role in the development and improvement of man as a species. It takes a person beyond the limits of his momentary existence, reminds him of the past, and opens up the future.
Imagination is the ability to imagine an absent or non-existent object, holding it in consciousness and mentally manipulating it.
Possessing a rich imagination, a person can “live” in different times, which no other creature in the world can afford. The past is recorded in memory images, arbitrarily resurrected by an effort of will, the future is presented in dreams and fantasies.
Imagination is the main visual-figurative thinking, which allows a person to navigate a situation and solve problems without the direct intervention of practical actions. It helps him in many ways in those cases of life when practical actions are either impossible, or difficult, or simply impractical or undesirable.
Imagination differs from perception, which is the process of a person receiving and processing various information entering the brain through the senses, and which ends in the formation of an image, in that its images do not always correspond to reality; they contain elements of fantasy and fiction. If the imagination draws to consciousness such pictures that nothing or little corresponds in reality, then it is called fantasy. If, in addition, the imagination is aimed at the future, it is called a dream.
Imagination can be of four main types:
Active imagination is characterized by the fact that, using it, a person, of his own free will, by an effort of will, evokes appropriate images in himself.
Passive imagination lies in the fact that its images arise spontaneously, regardless of the will and desire of a person.
Productive imagination is distinguished by the fact that in it reality is consciously constructed by a person, and not simply mechanically copied or recreated. At the same time, this reality is creatively transformed in the image.
Reproductive imagination - when used, the task is to reproduce reality as it is, and although there is also an element of fantasy, such imagination is more reminiscent of perception or memory than creativity.
The process of imagination in the practical activities of people is primarily associated with the process of artistic creativity. Thus, the direction in art called naturalism, as well as partly realism, can be correlated with the reproductive imagination. Based on paintings by I.I. Shishkin, for example, botanists can study the flora of the Russian forest, since all the plants on his canvases are depicted with “documentary” accuracy. The works of democratic artists of the second half of the 19th century I. Kramskoy, I. Repin, V. Petrov, with all their social emphasis, are also a search for a form that is as close as possible to copying reality.
In art, the source of any direction can only be life, which also acts as the primary basis for fantasy. However, no imagination is capable of inventing something that a person would not know. In this regard, it is reality that becomes the basis of the creativity of a number of art masters, whose flight of creative imagination is no longer satisfied by realistic, and even more so naturalistic means of imagination. But this reality is passed through the productive imagination of creators; they construct it in a new way, using light, color, filling their works with air vibration (impressionism), resorting to dotted images of objects (pointillism in painting and music), decomposing the objective world into geometric figures ( cubism), etc.
Therefore, we encounter productive imagination in art in cases where the artist is not satisfied with recreating reality using a realistic method. His world is a phantasmagoria, an irrational imagery, behind which there are quite obvious realities. For example, the fruit of such imagination is M. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”, the fiction of the Strugatsky brothers, etc. Appeal to such unusual and bizarre images makes it possible to enhance the intellectual, emotional and moral impact of art on a person.
Most often, the creative process in art is associated with active imagination: before capturing any image on paper, canvas or sheet music, the artist creates it in his imagination, making conscious volitional efforts. Often the active imagination so captivates the creator that he loses touch with his time, his “I”, getting used to the image he creates. Much evidence of this is given in the literature.
Less often, passive imagination becomes the impulse of the creative process, since spontaneous images independent of the will of the artist are most often the product of the subconscious work of his brain, hidden from him. And, nevertheless, observations of the creative process described in the literature make it possible to give examples of the role of passive imagination in artistic creativity. Thus, Franz Kafka gave an exceptional role to dreams in his work, capturing them in his fantastically gloomy works.
In addition, the creative process, as a rule, begins with a volitional effort, i.e. from the act of imagination, gradually captures the author so much that the imagination becomes spontaneous, and it is no longer he who creates the images, but the images own and control the artist, and he submits to their logic.
The work of human imagination is not limited to literature and art. It manifests itself to no lesser extent in scientific, technical, and other types of creativity. In all these cases, fantasy as a type of imagination plays a positive role.
But there are other types of imagination - dreams, hallucinations, reveries and daydreams. Dreams can be classified as passive and involuntary forms of imagination. Their true role in human life has not yet been established, although it is known that in a person’s dreams many vital needs are expressed and satisfied, which, for a number of reasons, cannot be realized in real life.
Hallucinations are fantastic visions that apparently have almost no connection with the reality around a person. Typically, hallucinations are the result of certain mental or bodily disorders and accompany many painful conditions.
Dreams, unlike hallucinations, are a completely normal mental state, which is a fantasy associated with a desire, most often a somewhat idealized future.
A dream differs from a dream in that it is somewhat more realistic and more closely related to reality, that is, in principle, feasible. Dreams and daydreams occupy a fairly large part of a person's time, especially in youth. For most people, dreams are pleasant thoughts about the future. Some also experience disturbing visions that give rise to feelings of anxiety, guilt, and aggressiveness.
The human mind cannot be in an inactive state, which is why people dream so much. The human brain continues to function even when new information does not enter it, when it does not solve any problems. It is at this time that the imagination begins to work. It has been established that a person, at will, is not able to stop the flow of thoughts, stop the imagination.
In the process of human life, the imagination performs a number of specific functions (Fig. 2), the first of which is to represent reality in images and be able to use them when solving problems. This function of imagination is connected with thinking and is organically included in it.
The second function of imagination is to regulate emotional states. With the help of his imagination, a person is able to at least partially satisfy many needs and relieve the tension generated by them. This vital function is especially emphasized and developed in such a direction of psychology as psychoanalysis.
The third function of imagination is associated with its participation in the voluntary regulation of cognitive processes and human states. With the help of skillfully created images, a person can pay attention to the necessary events; through images, he gains the opportunity to control perceptions, memories, and statements.
The fourth function of imagination is to form an internal plan of action, i.e. the ability to perform them in the mind, manipulating images.
The fifth function of imagination is planning and programming activities, drawing up such programs, assessing their correctness, and the implementation process.
With the help of imagination, a person can control many psychophysiological states of the body and tune it to upcoming activities. There are known facts indicating that with the help of imagination, purely by will, a person can influence organic processes: change the rhythm of breathing, pulse rate, blood pressure, body temperature, etc. These facts underlie auto-training, which is widely used for self-regulation.
With the help of special exercises and techniques, you can develop your imagination. In creative types of work - science, literature, art, engineering, etc., the development of imagination naturally occurs in the pursuit of these types of activities. In autogenic training, the desired result is achieved through a special system of exercises that are aimed at learning through willpower to relax individual muscle groups, for example, muscles of the arms, legs, head, torso, and arbitrarily increase or decrease pressure and body temperature, using imagination exercises for this purpose. heat, cold.
The essence of psychological phenomena and human behavior. However, the subjectivity of these methods, their lack of reliability and complexity were the reason that psychology for a long time remained a philosophizing, non-experimental science, capable of assuming, but not proving, cause-and-effect relationships that exist between mental and other phenomena. At the same time, due to excessive...
Human psyche. These ideas formed the basis of some of the provisions of modern psychology. At the beginning of the 19th century. New approaches to the psyche have emerged. There is a promise for the formation of psychology as a science. Among the prerequisites are the development of the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system. In the second half of the 19th century. knowledge from the field of biology, physiology, medicine became the basis for the creation of scientific psychology)