News tagged with imagination

Imagination

Imagination, also called the faculty of imagining, is the ability of forming mental images, sensations and concepts, in a moment when they are not perceived through sight, hearing or other senses. Imagination helps provide meaning to experience and understanding to knowledge; it is a fundamental facility through which people make sense of the world, and it also plays a key role in the learning process. A basic training for imagination is listening to storytelling (narrative), in which the exactness of the chosen words is the fundamental factor to "evoke worlds."

It is accepted as the innate ability and process of inventing partial or complete personal realms within the mind from elements derived from sense perceptions of the shared world.[citation needed] The term is technically used in psychology for the process of reviving in the mind, percepts of objects formerly given in sense perception. Since this use of the term conflicts with that of ordinary language, some psychologists have preferred to describe this process as "imaging" or "imagery" or to speak of it as "reproductive" as opposed to "productive" or "constructive" imagination. Imagined images are seen with the "mind's eye."

Imagination can also be expressed through stories such as fairy tales or fantasies. Most famous inventions or entertainment products were developed from the inspiration of someone's imagination.

Children often use narratives or pretend play in order to exercise their imagination. When children develop fantasy they play at two levels: first, they use role playing to act out what they have developed with their imagination, and at the second level they play again with their make-believe situation by acting as if what they have developed is an actual reality that already exists in narrative myth.

This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.


Watching Harry Potter films enhances creativity in children: study

Parents who feel guilty about letting their young children watch too many fantasy movies on TV can relax.

Psychology & Psychiatry created Mar 22, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Despite less play, children's use of imagination increases over two decades

Children today may be busier than ever, but Case Western Reserve University psychologists have found that their imagination hasn't suffered – in fact, it appears to have increased.

Psychology & Psychiatry created May 30, 2012 | popularity 3.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Myths about psychopaths busted

(Medical Xpress) -- New research challenges the belief that psychopaths are born not made, and suggests psychopaths may even be able to change their spots.

Psychology & Psychiatry created Dec 19, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Imagination can influence perception

Imagining something with our mind's eye is a task we engage in frequently, whether we're daydreaming, conjuring up the face of a childhood friend, or trying to figure out exactly where we might have parked the car. But how ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Jun 16, 2011 | popularity 3 / 5 (2) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Pretend play may not be as crucial to child development as believed, new study shows

(Medical Xpress)—Pretend play can be fun for preschool children, but a new University of Virginia study, published in a recent online edition of the journal Psychological Bulletin, finds that it is not as crucial to a c ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Aug 28, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Self-imagination can enhance memory in healthy and memory-impaired individuals

There's no question that our ability to remember informs our sense of self. Now research published in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, provides new evidence that the re ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Nov 07, 2012 | popularity 1 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast