Philosophers and scientists have long puzzled over where human imagination comes from. In other words, what makes humans able to create art, invent tools, think scientifically and perform other incredibly diverse behaviors?
Sep 16, 2013
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Being in the shower is the classic example. Your mind wanders. Then, all of the sudden, eureka! A new insight or creative breakthrough occurs.
Oct 5, 2022
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Have a look at this image. Do you perceive that the central black hole is expanding, as if you're moving into a dark environment, or falling into a hole? If so, you're not alone: a new study shows that this "expanding hole" ...
May 31, 2022
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Combining local and very real risk statistics for SARS-CoV-2 infection with an exercise in imagination helped participants in a Duke University psychology study make more realistic decisions about their own risky behaviors, ...
Aug 5, 2021
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Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) work on the principle that measurable changes in electrical brain activity occur just by thinking about performing a task. Signals can be read, evaluated, and then converted into control signals ...
Nov 7, 2019
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Sometimes in life there are special places that seem to stand out to us—a school playground, perhaps an old church, or that inconspicuous street corner where you were kissed for the first time. Before the kiss you had never ...
May 17, 2019
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(Medical Xpress)—"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one," sang John Lennon in his 1971 song Imagine.
Aug 28, 2014
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What happens when you tell a lie? Set aside your ethical concerns for a moment—after all, lying is a habit we practice with astonishing dexterity and frequency, whether we realize it or not. What goes on in your brain when ...
Sep 4, 2013
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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.
May 30, 2012
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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 ...
Jun 16, 2011
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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, licensed under CC BY-SA
