Types of imagination, their features and social functions

Everyone knows that there is a very significant difference between the world around us, and those images that we have when we perceive it. The reason for this is that a person has such a phenomenon as imagination. The human imagination consists, as it were, of two main components. Its first element is memory, in which images of the past reality in which one or another person was staying are preserved. The second is a fantasy, the level of development of which is purely individual. Due to the fact that both these properties are individual for each, then the imagination is also a subjective property

Due to this individuality, it is customary to distinguish the following types of imagination:

1) rational fantasy, this kind of imagination that is characterized by what reflects in the human mind only the most significant, most memorable aspects of the object. This is a kind of imagination in which the degree of adequacy of the mapping of an object in consciousness is largely determined by the characteristics of the object itself (memorable or not);

2) illusion - a kind of imagination, which inherent in the adoption of visibility for the real essence;

3) hoax, in which there is a deliberate distortion of reality.

All kinds of imagination can also be classified on the basis of the variety of causes that generate them. Here there are such species, where also each has its own peculiarities of imagination. Here are some of them:

- involuntary imagination, which is characterized, as a rule, when a person reduces control over his own current of thought and attention. Such imagination arises "by itself" and is inherent in people at an early stage of life, in childhood or early adolescence. Very often it occurs in a dream or in a sleepy state. A distinctive feature of such involuntary representations is their connection with other "residual" images of consciousness, as a result of which the fixation of such representations is very weak;

- arbitrary imagination is seen in psychology as active. Intentional imagination. It also begins to develop in early childhood, during games where it takes a role. The desire for "role truthfulness" helps to increase activity, which finds its application already in later life, when it becomes necessary for a person to make his own decisions, set tasks, and outline ways to solve them;

- The re-creating imagination is manifested when a person needs to create an image of something that he has never seen before and has not encountered, but he knows exactly what exists in nature. Thanks to him, man can reconstruct the past or imagine the landscapes of distant countries;

- creative imagination, in contrast to the recreating, creates new images and patterns of reality. At the same time, this can be formed in a person in such a way that he can create something in his imagination that has already been created by another / them people, but he may not even know about it.

- Man's dreams are a phenomenon that, as it were, unites all kinds of imagination into a certain stable wholeness that concentrically reflects his aspirations, life guides, values.

Acting in a complex manner, or with the priority of any one, but somehow, all kinds of imagination accompany a person throughout the entire period of his life. This explains the variety of functions that they play out in it.

The considered functions of the imagination in psychology are as follows:

Cognitive, which manifests itself in the fact that imagination contributes to the accumulation and consolidation of knowledge.

Generating, which consists in the fact that imagination promotes the accumulation of diverse information, images, facts in the mind of a person.

Synthetic is manifested in the ability of the imagination to "fold" from a multitude of isolated components a single image, a dream.

The function of anticipation allows a person on the basis of previous experience fixed in images to foresee and even predict the possible development of events in the future.

The regulating function is manifested as a tool for correcting human thinking and behavior based on, again, the prevailing images of its social experience.

The function of emotional impact is manifested in the influence of existing imaginary images on the daily behavior of a person, and they can both contribute to, for example, creative activity, and distract from the performance of professional duties.