Imagination as a mental cognitive process. Development of imagination
Imagination as a mental cognitive process
IMAGINATION DEVELOPMENT IN PRESCHOOL
Memory development tools
In the first year, the child's involuntary memorization proceeds in joint activity with an adult through the manipulation of objects.
o ensuring multiple repetition of an action in order to memorize it with a word;
o finger games;
o inclusion of folklore in communication with the child;
o middle and high preschool age reliance on a picture that reflects the main content of the text. In this way, verbal memory develops in unity with figurative and motor memory.
o observation, because memory depends on the completeness of perception and an active analysis of the object is required;
o daily routine;
o exclusion of excessive emotional overload;
o development of voluntary memory occurs when an adult encourages a child to consciously reproduce his experience in play, productive activity;
o semantic correlation - the establishment of associations between the word and the object depicted in the picture (support for memorization);
o the requirement of an adult to remember should be caused by the needs of the activity in which the child is included;
o teaching a 5-6 year old child logical memorization techniques;
o didactic games.
1. Imagination as a mental cognitive process
2. The emergence and development of imagination
3. general characteristics children's imagination
4. Means of developing imagination
Imagination- it is a mental cognitive process of creating new ways by processing and recombining existing experience; reflection of reality in new, unexpected combinations and connections.
Imagination is inherent only in man.
Types of imagination:
1. Depending on the degree of activity
Active
Passive
2. Depending on the originality and independence of the images
Creative
Re-creating
3. From the presence of a deliberately set goal to create an image
Intentional
Unintentional
This is a socially conditioned process that depends on the adult and on communication with him. In infancy and early age, there is an accumulation of sensory, life experience, impressions, which then become material for creating images of the imagination.
O.M.D'chenko singles out three main stages in the development of imagination
| 1st stage 2.5-3 years - the period of substantive activity | Mastering actions with objects, the child masters object substitutions. Based on his experience, he can finish painting indefinite images (for example, a square in a house, a booth, etc.). The image of the imagination appears in the course of the drawing activity. The child cannot say in advance what he will draw. |
| 2nd stage 4-5 years - the period of role-playing, drawing, construction | Imaginary objects are complemented by various details: - the ability to plan the upcoming action develops: "I will draw a house"; - then this house is complemented with details (pipe, windows, flowers, etc.); - along with the combination of ideas of memory, the child modifies objects: "I will build a tower to heaven"; - speech development leads the child to verbal creativity, the composition of fairy tales, poetry. |
| 3rd stage 6-7 years - development of arbitrariness | The child can deviate from the learned standards, combine them in different ways. A holistic image of the imagination can be built in a variety of ways, often on the basis of holistic planning. The implementation of the plan is going according to plan. |
In the 2nd year of life, the main means of stimulating the imagination is 1) the inclusion of the child in imaginary situations, fun, practical jokes (roll on their knees, "drop" - "Boom into the hole!");
2) the use of folklore, toys (the bunny sits and watches how the children eat);
3) teaching the use of substitute subjects, building an imaginary situation (in the 3rd year);
4) playing with buildings;
5) the creation of a subject-developing environment, which includes, along with familiar objects, non-specific objects (waste and natural material);
6) enrichment own experience child;
7) teaching ways and means of transforming impressions; the formation of critical thinking (does this happen or not ?; identification of contradictions);
8) the creation of problem situations that do not have an unambiguous solution.
All representations of the imagination are built from material obtained in past perceptions and stored in memory. The activity of the imagination is always the processing of those data that are delivered by sensations and perceptions. For example, a person who has not been to the Far North can imagine the tundra only because he saw images of it in pictures and photographs, saw in reality individual elements that make up the tundra landscape - saw a snow-covered plain, small shrubs, saw deer in a zoo ...
Imagination - mental. a process involving the creation of new images (representations) by processing the material of perceptions and representations obtained in previous experience. It is inherent only in man. It is a cognitive process. The specificity is in the processing of past experience. It is inextricably linked with the process of memory (memorization, preservation, reproduction and forgetting). Converts what is in memory.
Types of imagination: 1 ) recreational imagination - unfolds on the basis of a description, story, drawing, diagram, symbol. 2) creative imagination - the creation of a completely new, original image that has not existed until now. 3) a dream is a special form of imagination, localized in a sufficient future and uniting ideas about a high quality life.
Types of imagination:
"" Passive imagination: 1. deliberate; 2. unintentional.
Passive intentional imagination: dreams are images of fantasies, deliberately evoked, but not associated with the will aimed at translating them into reality.
Passive unintentional imagination: in a half-asleep state, in a state of passion, in a dream (dream), with pathological disorders of consciousness (hallucinations), etc. It arises when the activity of consciousness, the second signal system, is weakened, when a person is temporarily inactive.
Active imagination: 1 creative; 2 recreational.
Imagination, which is based on the creation of images corresponding to the description, is called re-creating.
Creative imagination involves the independent creation of new images that are realized in original and valuable products of activity.
Techniques (methods) for creating images of imagination: 1) agglutination - the creation of a new image by combining fragments of different thoughts and words into one whole. observed in schizophrenia (in particular, it is one of the mechanisms of formation of neologisms) and in focal cortical speech disorders (leads to the formation of paraphasias such as contamination.) 2) accentuation is one of the ways to create images of the imagination. highlight, emphasize some thought. 3) schematization - the creation of images using diagrams, pictures. 4) typification - selection or development of standard designs or production processes based on general ones; generalization, expression of general ideas, processes and phenomena; highlighting the essential, repeating in homogeneous phenomena and translating it into a concrete base.
The synthesis of representations in the processes of imagination is carried out in various forms.
1) agglutination - involves the "gluing" of various parts in everyday life of unconnected qualities, properties, parts.
2) hyperbolization - characterized not only by an increase or decrease in the object, but also by a change in the number of parts of the object or their displacement.
3) sharpening - emphasizing any signs (caricatures, cartoons).
4) schematization - separate ideas merge, differences are smoothed out, and similarities appear clearly.
5) typification - highlighting the essential, repetitive, their embodiment in a specific image.
Development of imagination.
The game is characterized by the rapid development of imagination processes. Imagination is formed in different types activity and fades when the child stops acting.
Fantasy appears as one of the most important conditions for the assimilation of social experience. Fantasy - important condition development of the child's personality.
Dream - images of the desired future.
Development of imagination - A purposeful process that pursues the task of developing the brightness of imaginary images, their originality and depth, as well as the fruitfulness of the imagination. In its development, imagination is subject to the same laws that other mental processes follow in their ontogenetic transformations. As perception, memory and attention, expression from the immediate gradually turns into mediated, and the main means of mastering it on the part of the child are, as shown by A.V. Zaporozhets, model representations and sensory standards.
By the end of the preschool period of childhood, a child whose creative imagination develops rather quickly (such children, according to O.M. Dyachenko, make up about one fifth of all children of this age), imagination is presented in two main forms: as a product of some idea and how the emergence of a plan for its implementation.
In addition to its cognitive and intellectual function, the imagination of children plays another - affective-protective - role, protecting the growing and easily vulnerable, still weakly protected personality of the child from excessively difficult experiences and mental trauma. Thanks to the cognitive function of imagination, the child gets to know the world around him better, solves the problems that arise before him more easily and efficiently. The emotional and protective function of the imagination is expressed in the fact that through an imaginary situation, the emerging tension can be released and a kind, symbolic (figurative) resolution of conflicts that are difficult to remove by real practical actions.
At the first stage of the development of imagination, it is associated with the process of objectifying the image by action. Through this process, the child learns to control his images, change, refine and improve them, and, consequently, regulate his imagination. However, he is not yet in a position to plan his imagination, to draw up in his mind a plan of future actions in advance. This ability in children appears only by the age of 4-5 years.
Affective imagination in children aged 2.5 - 3 to 4-5 years develops according to a slightly different logic. Initially, negative experiences in children are symbolically expressed in the heroes of fairy tales heard or seen (in the cinema, on television). Following this, the child begins to build imaginary situations that remove the threats of his "I" (stories are children's fantasies about themselves as having especially pronounced qualities). Finally, at the third stage of the development of this function, the ability to relieve the emerging emotional stress through the projection mechanism develops, thanks to which unpleasant knowledge about oneself, one's own negative, emotionally and morally unacceptable qualities begin to be attributed to other people, as well as objects and animals.
By the age of about 6-7 years, the development of affective imagination in children reaches the level where many of them are able to imagine themselves and live in an imaginary world.
A person is not born with a developed imagination. The development of imagination is carried out in the course of human ontogenesis and requires the accumulation of a certain stock of ideas, which in the future can serve as material for creating images of the imagination. Imagination develops in close connection with the development of the entire personality, in the process of training and education, as well as in unity with thinking, memory, will and feelings.
It is very difficult to determine any specific age limits that characterize the dynamics of the development of imagination. There are examples of extremely early development imagination. For example, Mozart began composing music at the age of four, Repin and Serov were already good at drawing at the age of six. On the other hand, the late development of imagination does not mean that this process will be at a low level in more mature years. History knows cases when great people, for example Einstein, did not have a developed imagination in childhood, but over time they began to speak of them as geniuses.
Despite the complexity of determining the stages of development of human imagination, certain patterns can be identified in its formation. So, the first manifestations of imagination are closely related to the process of perception. For example, children at the age of one and a half years are not yet able to listen to even the simplest stories or fairy tales, they are constantly distracted or fall asleep, but they are happy to listen to stories about what they themselves have experienced. In this phenomenon, the connection between imagination and perception is quite clearly visible. The child listens to the story of his experiences because he clearly represents what is being discussed. The connection between perception and imagination is preserved at the next stage of development, when the child begins to process the impressions received in his games, modifying previously perceived objects in his imagination. The chair turns into a cave or plane, the box turns into a car. However, it should be noted that the first images of the child's imagination are always associated with activity. The child does not dream, but embodies the processed image in his activity, even though this activity is a game.
An important stage in the development of imagination is associated with the age when the child masters speech. Speech allows the child to include in his imagination not only specific images, but also more abstract ideas and concepts. Moreover, speech allows the child to move from the expression of imaginary images in activity to their direct expression in speech.
The stage of mastering speech is accompanied by an increase in practical experience and the development of attention, which allows the child to more easily single out individual parts of the object, which he already perceives as independent and with which he increasingly operates in his imagination. However, the synthesis takes place with significant distortions of reality. Due to the lack of sufficient experience and insufficient criticality of thinking, the child cannot create an image close to reality. Main feature this stage is the involuntary nature of the emergence of images of the imagination. Most often, images of imagination are formed in a child of a given age involuntarily, in accordance with the situation in which he is.
The next stage in the development of imagination is associated with the emergence of its active forms. At this stage, the imagination process becomes arbitrary. The emergence of active forms of imagination is initially associated with the motivating initiative on the part of the adult. For example, when an adult asks a child to do something (draw a tree, build a house with blocks, etc.), he activates the imagination process. In order to fulfill the request of an adult, the child must first create, or recreate, in his imagination, a certain image. Moreover, this process of imagination by its nature is already arbitrary, since the child is trying to control it. Later, the child begins to use arbitrary imagination without any adult participation. This leap in the development of imagination is reflected primarily in the nature of the child's play.
They become focused and narrative. The things surrounding the child become not just stimuli for the development of objective activity, but act as material for the embodiment of the images of his imagination. A child at the age of four to five begins to draw, build, sculpt, rearrange things and combine them in accordance with his plan. Another major shift in imagination occurs at school age.
The need to understand the educational material causes the activation of the process of recreational imagination. In order to assimilate the knowledge that is given at school, the child actively uses his imagination, which causes the progressive development of the ability to process images of perception into images of the imagination.
Another reason for the rapid development of imagination during school years is that in the learning process, the child actively receives new and versatile ideas about objects and phenomena. the real world... These representations serve as a necessary basis for imagination and stimulate the creative activity of the student.
Literature
A.G. Maklakov General psychology... SPb: Peter, 2001.Dyachenko O.M. On the main directions of the development of imagination in children // Questions of psychology. - 1988 (61).
"Psychological monitoring" - Psychological support of a student in psychological monitoring mode makes it possible: Complex technology that combines diagnostics, consultation, correction into a single effective system psychological means, implemented in a certain sequence, filled with strictly selected content and allowing flexible and effective implementation of psychological support of the educational process, to achieve the desired goal.
"Work as a psychologist" - Another area of application of the skills of a psychologist is healthcare. Psychological centers private offices on psychological counseling educational and medical institutions. The competition between specialists is fierce. Profession "Psychologist". Back to school? Place of work: Pros of the profession: Personal qualities:
"Psychology of groups" - Conclusion: (K. Levin). What is development? Personal development conditions; The influence of the group on individual behavior; Conditions for the formation of giftedness. Conflict resolution. The laws of life of the group itself. (Refers to the subject "laws of life in a group"). Method: research (experiment) in a cognitive environment. The laws of life in a group.
"School psychologist" - Content of work with a specific child Content and principles of the use of psychodiagnostic techniques. The school psychologist is like the school nurse: Psychologists, like doctors, can have different functions depending on the place of work. How can a school psychologist help a teacher in working with a difficult child?
"Human Psychology" - The goal of the program. In the course of training, you will be able to acquire skills: Computer technology in science and education. Content structure of the program. Our graduates realize themselves in the labor market in: The main directions of the laboratory's activity. Scientific direction Study of ethnic stereotypes of Petersburgers about the peoples of the Baltic.
"Psychology as a Science" - (1832-1920). (from the English behavior - behavior) - a direction that considers the psyche as a form of behavior. Lecture 2. His research was mainly conducted on rats and pigeons. The core of the humanistic idea is an optimistic view of human nature. There is a rapid development of social psychology in the United States.
There are 10 presentations in total
According to psychoanalysts, one of the main functions of the imagination is to protect the personality, compensate for negative experiences that are generated by preconscious processes and fix social conflicts personality. In this regard, the effects of creative imagination-behavior are nothing more than the elimination of oppressive emotions (no matter what they are at the same time according to the sign) that arise in the conflict, until a level that is tolerable for the individual is reached. Therefore, it is not difficult to explain the acts of creative activity, including children's, in the types of productive activity available to them: drawing, modeling, less often in construction.
In general, one should speak of imagination as a mental process only if there is an active full-fledged consciousness. Therefore, it can be argued that the child's imagination begins its development from the age of three.
200 Averin V.A. _______
Affective imagination arises in situations of contradiction between the image of reality that exists in the mind of the child and the reflected reality itself. " The inability to resolve it leads to an increase in internal tension and, as a consequence, the emergence of anxiety and fear. This is evidenced by the rather large number of fears in children of 3 years of age 2. At the same time, it should be noted that children resolve many of the contradictions on their own. And in this they are helped by the affective imagination. Thus, it can be argued that its main function is -protective, helping the child to overcome the contradictions that arise in him. In addition, it performs and regulating function in the course of assimilation of the norms of behavior by the child.
Along with it, stands out and cognitive imagination, which, like the affective one, helps the child to overcome the contradictions that arise, and, in addition, to complete and clarify the integral picture of the world. With its help, children master schemes and meanings, build integral images of events and phenomena 3.
Stages of development of imagination.
Start first stage in the development of imagination refers to 2.5 years old. At this age, the imagination is divided into affective and cognitive. This duality of imagination is associated with two psychological neoplasms of early childhood, first, we will become personal "I" and, in connection with this, the child's experience of his own separation from the surrounding world, and, secondly, with the emergence visual-action thinking. First
" Dyachenko O.M. On the main directions of the development of imagination / Questions of psychology, 1988, No. 6.2 Zakharov A.I. At K. op. ^ Dyachenko O. M. UK. op.
Chapter 4. 201
of these new formations is the basis for the development of affective imagination, and the other - cognitive. By the way, the psychological saturation of these two determinants determine the role and significance of the affective and cognitive imagination. The weaker the child's “I”, his consciousness, the less adequately he perceives the surrounding reality, the sharper the contradictions arising between the forming image and the reality itself. On the other hand, the less developed the child's objective thinking, the more difficult it is for him to clarify and complete the real picture of the world around him.
Speaking about the psychological determinants of the development of imagination, we should also mention speech. Developed speech is a favorable factor in the development of imagination. It allows the child to better imagine an object that he did not see, to operate in this way, i.e. think. Developed speech frees the child from the power of direct impressions, allows him to go beyond them, and, therefore, to build more adequate (consistent) images of the surrounding reality. It is no coincidence, therefore, delays in the development of speech provoke delays in the development of imagination. An example of this is the poor, in fact, rudimentary imagination of deaf children.
The development of cognitive imagination is carried out by the child in playing with toys, when no familiar actions of adults are played out and possible options for these actions (feeding the children, walking with them, going to bed and other similar games).
The development of affective imagination is carried out through the child's playing of experiences. They are mainly associated with experiences of fear. And if parents organize such games at home, they contribute to the elimination of fear. For example, a boy of three asks to play the tale "Three Little Pigs", where the most significant
202 Averin V.A. Psychology of children and adolescents _______
and the moments that he plays out are the scenes of the appearance of the wolf and running away from him. Three times a wolf appears and three times our baby, screeching and screaming, runs away from him, hiding either in another room or behind a chair. And parents do the right thing if they help the child in this game.
Another example illustrates the parents' lack of understanding of the psychological essence of what is happening. When asked whether their three-year-old daughter suffers from an excessive sense of fear, they amicably reply that their girl, on the contrary, is very brave and is not afraid of anything. Proof of this, in their opinion, is that the girl constantly plays Babu Yaga and the Wolf. In fact, the child in a situation of affective imagination protects his "I" from experiences, acting out his fear in a similar situation. Another example about the psycho-protective function of the imagination in preschool age. Three-year-old Igor, walking with his mother, saw a big black cat and hid behind his mother's back in fear. “I'm not afraid of a cat, I just give her way, because she is very pretty,” - this is how he explains his act. And it’s a pity if mom starts to blame or reproach the baby for cowardice. After all, Igorek is, in fact, simulating an imaginary situation and acting out his own fear.
In situations where the child has experienced a strong emotional experience, impression, it is important to play similar situations with him at home so that the child can act out his experiences. There are other possibilities for this. If, for example, a child is already drawing or sculpting, he can do it in drawing or sculpting.
The mechanism of constructing the imagination assumes the presence of two successive elements: generating an image of an idea and drawing up a plan for its implementation. At the first stage of the development of imagination, only the first of them is present - the image of an idea, which is built by objectification, when the child has his separate and incomplete impressions.
Chapter 4. Developmental psychology of children ... 203
from reality he completes with the help of imagination to some objective whole. Therefore, a square can easily turn into a house or a doghouse. There is no planning of an imaginary action, as well as of its products at this stage of the development of imagination. This is easy to see if you ask a 3-4 year old kid to tell about what he is going to draw or sculpt. He will not answer your question. The fact is that the imagination creates the very idea, which is then objectified in the image. Therefore, the child first appears with a drawing, an image, a figure, and then its designation (remember the description of the appearance of a drawing given in the previous paragraph). Moreover, any suggestions to the child to draw up a plan in advance and then act on it led to the destruction of the activity and the rejection of it.
Second phase in the development of imagination begins at 4-5 years old. There is an active assimilation of norms, rules and patterns of behavior, which naturally strengthens the child's “I”, makes his behavior more conscious in comparison with the previous period. Perhaps this very circumstance is the reason for the decline in creative imagination. How do affective and cognitive imagination relate?
Affective imagination. At this age, the incidence of persistent fears decreases (since the effects of distorted perception of the surrounding reality decrease with the development of consciousness). Usually, the affective imagination of a healthy child arises in connection with the experience of real trauma. For example, a five-year-old child, after undergoing surgery, operated on his bear-cub friend for a month, playing out the most traumatic elements of the operation: anesthesia, removal of stitches, etc. Stable internal conflicts are manifested in the construction of substitute situations: for example, a child comes up with a story about a bad boy who does pranks and the like instead of him.
204 Averin V.A. Psychology of children and adolescents _______
Cognitive imagination at this age is closely associated with the development of role-playing and productive activities - drawing, modeling, construction.
At this age, the child still follows the image (the image "leads" the child's actions) and therefore he mainly reproduces the patterns of behavior of adults and peers known to him in roles, drawings, etc. But since the child is already fluent in speech, he has elements of planning. The child plans one step of action, then takes it, executes it, sees the result, then plans the next step, etc. From four to five years old, children move to step planning. For example, before drawing something, the child says: "Here I will draw a house" (draws it), "and now a pipe" (draws it), "window" (draws), etc. The possibility of step-by-step planning leads children to directed verbal creativity, when they compose fairy tales, as if stringing one event after another.
Stage Three in the development of imagination begins at 6-7 years old. At this age, the child learns the basic patterns of behavior and gets the freedom to operate with them. He can deviate from the standards, combine them, using these standards in the construction of products of the imagination.
Within this stage affective imagination is aimed at getting rid of the received traumatic influences through their repeated variation in the game, drawing and other types of productive, creative activity. In the case of persistent conflicts with reality, children turn to a substitute imagination.
At this age, the child's creativity is projective, which symbolizes stable experiences. For example, a boy raised in overprotective conditions, when completing an assignment, draws a Snake Mountain-nycha with thorns on his head. When asked why he needs these thorns, he replies that the Serpent Gorynych specially
Chapter 4. Developmental psychology of children ... 205
grew so that no one could sit on his head. Thus, we see that creative activities can also act as ways to compensate for traumatic experiences.
Cognitive imagination at this stage it undergoes qualitative changes. Children six years in their works they not only convey revised impressions, but also begin to purposefully seek methods for their transmission. For example, when drawing unfinished images, a square can easily turn into a brick, which is lifted by a crane. An important developmental moment is that it first appears holistic planning, when the child first builds a plan of action, and then consistently implements it, adjusting it along the way. If at this age a child is asked what he is going to draw, he will answer something like this: "I will draw a house, a garden near it, and the girl walks and watering flowers." Or: “I’ll draw the New Year. The tree is standing, next to Santa Claus and the Snow Maiden, and under the tree is a bag of gifts. "
0-M. Dyachenko notes that the described three stages of the development of imagination represent the possibilities of each age. Under natural conditions, without guidance from adults, everything mentioned above is realized by only one fifth of children of every age. Parents, doctors and teachers need to know about this. "
And one more remark. It should be remembered that affective imagination without sufficient trauma can lead to pathological stagnation experiences or to the child's autism, to the creation of a life that replaces the imagination.
In turn, the cognitive imagination tends to gradually fade away. Talking about meaning
Dyachenko O.M. UK. op.
206 Averin V.A. Psychology of children and adolescents _______
imagination, one should point out the advanced nature of its development in comparison with thinking. This means that thinking develops on the basis of imagination. Thus, it is simply impossible to overestimate the importance of imagination in the mental development of a child as a whole.