1. HUMANIMAGINATIONS
• Imagination
• Psychology of imagination
• Imagination and memory
• Imagination and perception
• Imagination vs. belief
• Brain activation
• Imagination as a reality
2. Imagination:
Imagination, also called the faculty of imagining, is the ability to form new
images and sensations in the mind that are not perceived through senses
such as sight, hearing, or other senses. Imagination helps make knowledge
applicable in solving problems and is fundamental to integrating experience
and 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 a whole cycle of image formation
or any sensation which may be described as "hidden" as it takes place
without anyone else's knowledge. A person may imagine according to his
mood, it may be good or bad depending on the situation. Some people
imagine in a state of tension or gloominess in order to calm themselves. 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. 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".
3. The common use of the term is
for the process of forming new
images in the mind that have
not been previously
experienced with the help of
what has been seen, heard, or
felt before, or at least only
partially or in different
combinations. Some typical
examples follow:
* Fairy tale
* Fiction
* A form of verisimilitude
often invoked in fantasy and
science fiction invites readers
to pretend such stories are true
by referring to objects of the
mind such as fictional books or
years that do not exist apart
from an imaginary world.
4. Imagination is an experimental partition of the
mind used to develop theories and ideas based on
functions. Taking objects from real perceptions,
the imagination uses complex IF-functions to
develop new or revised ideas. This part of the
mind is vital to developing better and easier ways
to accomplish old and new tasks. These
experimental ideas can be safely conducted inside
a virtual world and then, if the idea is probable
and the function is true, the idea can be
actualized in reality. Imagination is the key to new
development of the mind and can be shared with
others, progressing collectively.
Regarding the volunteer effort, imagination can be
classified as:
* voluntary (the dream from the sleep, the
daydream)
* involuntary (the reproductive imagination, the
creative imagination, the dream of perspective)
5. Psychology of imagination:
Psychologists have studied imaginative
thought, not only in its exotic form of
creativity and artistic expression but
also in its mundane form of everyday
imagination. Ruth M.J. Byrne has
proposed that everyday imaginative
thoughts about counter factual
alternatives to reality may be based on
the same cognitive processes on which
rational thoughts are also based.
Children can engage in the creation of
imaginative alternatives to reality from
their very early years.
6. Imagination and memory:
Memory and imagination have been shown to be affected by one another.
"Images made by functional magnetic resonance imaging technology show that
remembering and imagining sends blood to identical parts of the brain." An
optimal balance of intrinsic, extraneous, and germane forms clarification
needed]of information processing can heighten the chance of the brain to retain
information as long term memories, rather than short term memories. This is
significant because experiences stored as long term memories are easier to be
recalled, as they are ingrained deeper in the mind. Each of these forms require
information to be taught in a specific manner so as to use various regions of the
brain when being processed. This information can potentially help develop
programs for young students to cultivate or further enhance their creative
abilities from a young age. The neo cortex and thalamus are responsible for
controlling the brain's imagination, along with many of the brain's other
functions such as consciousness and abstract thought. Since imagination
involves many different brain functions, such as emotions, memory, thoughts,
etc., portions of the brain where multiple functions occur—such as the thalamus
and neo cortex—are the main regions where imaginative processing has been
documented. The understanding of how memory and imagination are linked in
the brain, paves the way to better understand one's ability to link significant past
experiences with their imagination.
7. Imagination and perception:
Piaget posited that perceptions
depend on the world view of a
person. The world view is the result
of arranging perceptions into existing
imagery by imagination. Piaget cites
the example of a child saying that
the moon is following her when she
walks around the village at night. Like
this, perceptions are integrated into
the world view to make sense.
Imagination is needed to make sense
of perceptions.
8. Imagination vs. belief:
Imagination is different from belief because the subject understands that what
is personally invented by the mind does not necessarily affect the course of
action taken in the apparently shared world, while beliefs are part of what one
holds as truths about both the shared and personal worlds. The play of
imagination, apart from the obvious limitations (e.g. of avoiding explicit self-
contradiction), is conditioned only by the general trend of the mind at a given
moment. Belief, on the other hand, is immediately related to practical activity:
it is perfectly possible to imagine oneself a millionaire, but unless one believes
it one does not, therefore, act as such. Belief endeavors to conform to the
subject's experienced conditions or faith in the possibility of those conditions;
whereas imagination as such is specifically free. The dividing line between
imagination and belief varies widely in different stages of technological
development. Thus in more extreme cases, someone from a primitive culture
who ill frames an ideal reconstruction of the causes of his illness, and
attributes it to the hostile magic of an enemy based on faith and tradition
rather than science. In ignorance of the science of pathology the subject is
satisfied with this explanation, and actually believes in it, sometimes to the
point of death, due to what is known as the nocebo effect.
It follows that the learned distinction between imagination and belief depends
in practice on religion, tradition, and culture.
9. Brain activation:
A study using fMRI while subjects were asked to imagine precise visual
figures, to mentally disassemble them, or mentally blend them, showed
activity in the occipital, front o parietal, posterior parietal, precuneus, and
dorsolateral prefrontal regions of the subject's brains.
10. Imagination can also produce some symptoms of real illnesses. In some cases,
they can seem so "real" that specific physical manifestations occur such as
rashes and bruises appearing on the skin, as though imagination had passed
into belief or the events imagined were actually in progress. See, for example,
psychosomatic illness and folie a deux.
It has also been proposed that the whole of human cognition is based upon
imagination. That is, nothing that is perceived is purely observation but all is a
blend between sense and imagination.
The world as experienced is an interpretation of data arriving from the senses; as
such, it is perceived as real by contrast to most thoughts and imaginings. Users of
hallucinogenic drugs are said to have a heightened imagination. This difference is
only one of degree and can be altered by several historic causes, namely changes
to brain chemistry, hypnotisor other altered states of consciousness, meditation,
many hallucinogenic drugs, and electricity applied directly to specific parts of the
brain. The difference between imagined and perceived reality can be proven by
psychosis. Many mental illnesses can be attributed to this inability to distinguish
between the sensed and the internally created worlds. Some cultures and
traditions even view the apparently shared world as an illusion of the mind as with
the Buddhist maya, or go to the opposite extreme and accept the imagined and
dreamed realms as of equal validity to the apparently shared world as the
Australian Aborigines do with their concept of dreamtime.
Imagination as a reality: