IMAGINATIVE MINDS
An Interdisciplinary Symposium

Additional Resources

Imaginative Minds: an overview of themes and perspectives by Ilona Roth

Imagination: we use the word frequently and take it for granted that we know what we mean. Yet the word has different shades of meaning, reflected in several distinct definitions in the Oxford Dictionary. These range from the formation of mental images (usually assumed to be visual, but also, by implication, auditory, tactile and so on), to states of mind such as daydreaming, characterised by fantasy and the spontaneous flow of thought from one idea to another, to the mental activity of considering or planning possible courses of action, to creative imagination - the power of framing highly novel or original ideas and cultural products. These meanings may seem, on the face of it, quite distinct. A key element which they share in common (among others which we shall explore) is a reference to the human mind’s capacity to consider and work with concepts, ideas and actions which are not being currently sensed or physically enacted. In this sense, imagination is surely fundamental to the mental apparatus which distinguishes humans, in degree if not in kind, from other species. It is this which enables humans to operate flexibly and adaptively in highly complex social groupings, to contemplate intricate plans for possible (and impossible) future action, and to revisit both plans and actions themselves. Without the creative part of this faculty, human society, stripped of works of art, literature, poetry and music, and devoid of scientific and technological innovation and discovery, would be quite unrecognisable and very dull.

A possible objection to such a wide-ranging definition of imagination is that the territory so delineated becomes indistinguishable from thought in general: after all, what is human thought if it is not abstract, hypothetical, flexible and creative? A full answer to this objection is beyond the scope of this introduction, but two points can be made here. Firstly, even without a hard and fast distinction between imaginative thought and thought in general, the former concept encapsulates the most quintessential and special characteristics of human thought, and as such merits special consideration. Secondly, studies of people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) give us a glimpse of thought, stripped of much of its imaginative quality. This apparent dissociation of imaginative thought from cognition in general argues that a meaningful distinction can be made.

In the symposium ‘Imaginative Minds’ (30 April-1May 2004, British Academy), and in this associated website, we consider what makes for imaginative minds, in terms of both the processes and the mechanisms involved, and the cultural ‘products’ which emanate from them. The study of imaginative minds is inherently interdisciplinary: no academic discipline is likely to admit to having nothing to say on this topic! But since the potential scope of the topic is vast, it is necessary to select and focus the discussion somewhat. The primary focus of this project is scientific approaches to the imagination: what we can learn from studies in the broad field of the Cognitive Sciences, including approaches from Psychology, Anthropology, Philosophy and Evolutionary studies. However, the cross-disciplinary fertilisation of ideas, which is a key objective of this project, could not be attained without perspectives on the cultural outputs which are the highest achievements of the human imagination. So this survey also includes selected perspectives from archaeology, cultural anthropology, literature and musicology.

Theoretical background to a science of the imagination

In a world in which scientific ideas and technological processes, and even routine daily activities are subject to rapid and frequent innovation and change, the supreme flexibility and inventiveness of mind we associate with imagination has become highly prized. Teachers and parents are encouraged to promote imagination in children, and in adult life, a high premium is placed on activities, whether in business, science, the visual and performing arts or other branches of life, which show imagination or creativity. The concept of imagination plays a central role in many fields of academic study including art history, literature and musicology. Specialists in such fields apparently have few reservations about using the term. Yet, despite all this, psychologists have been notably slow in getting to grips with the concept. There are several historical reasons for this, with roots in philosophical debates spanning hundreds of years.

The status of imagination as a concept worthy of investigation has oscillated with changing philosophical and ideological world views. In some historical eras it was viewed as a decadent, undisciplined form of thought and no match for logical reasoning, from which it was seen as sharply distinct. For instance, the fact that writers and artists of the Romantic movement (Wordsworth and Shelley for instance) embraced imagination as a faculty central to their ideology did little to recommend the concept to critics of that movement (Thomas 1999). It leant weight to a view of imagination as a primitive, unfettered and dreamy mode of thought and, as such, antithetical to science and other activities requiring ‘organised’ thinking. To some extent, the legacy of this view still undermines the status of imagination as a phenomenon or phenomena worthy of scientific study.

During the height of Behaviourist (stimulus-response) psychology in the first half of the 20th century, imagination was just one of many complex attributes of mind relegated to theoretical obscurity. At its most extreme, the behaviourist view was that phenomena such as consciousness and imagination were meaningless because they comprise unobservable (i.e. mental) events, which do not lend themselves to objective measurement. With the demise of behaviourism in the ‘70s, and the rise of cognitive approaches, which treat the workings of the human mind as their central focus, topics such as the psychology of consciousness have been fully ‘rehabilitated’ into the mainstream of psychology. Yet there has been some residual reticence in developing a coherent psychology of imagination.

Here again the impact of the Romantic tradition can be detected. The enduring notion of imagination as primitive, associative and non-rational resonated strongly with psychoanalytical models of mind, originating in Freud’s own work in the late 19th and early 20th century. Freud and his followers equated imagination with fantasy, dreaming and pathology- so-called primary process or thinking. While the psychoanalytic movement deserves much of the credit for keeping psychological interest in imagination going during the ‘dark days’ of behaviourism, their take on this concept helped to place it ‘beyond the pale’ of mainstream experimental approaches. Since cognitive approaches have tended to focus upon conscious logical reasoning processes- so-called ‘secondary process thinking’,- it is little wonder that they have either overlooked imagination, or sought to explain it exclusively in terms of rational thinking. The theoretical hiatus between psychodynamic and more ‘mainstream’ accounts of imagination has obscured the probable role of both associative and logical thought processes in imagination (Martindale 1999) This has stunted the development of a well-balanced general account. On the one hand, investigations of undirected or non-rational thought processes have mostly proceeded without the beneficial input of objective scientific methods. As Gilhooly (1996 ) points out, Jerome Singer’s research on day-dreaming is one of the few exceptions to this rule. On the other hand, cognitive experimental approaches to the imagination have eschewed some of its most interesting but elusive manifestations.

Another problem is the sheer slipperiness of the term. As we have seen, it has several meanings within everyday language, which are matched by an equal range of usages within psychology. In the work of psychologists prepared to engage with the concept, distinguishable meanings of imagination include:

• Imagery-the capacity for ‘quasi-perceptual experience . . . in the absence of appropriate external stimuli’ (Thomas 1999), colloquially known as ‘seeing things in the mind’s eye’, ‘hearing them in the mind’s ear’ and so on.
• Pretence-the activity of imbuing events, objects or entities with imaginary properties, and other childhood phenomena such as belief in fairies and magic (see for instance, Harris 2000).
• Mindedness or theory of mind- the capacity to conceive of (imagine) the thoughts and feelings of others (see for instance Currie and Ravenscroft 2002)
• Counterfactual thinking- imagining ‘what might have been’ or ‘what if...’
• Creativity-the power of framing highly novel and original ideas and cultural products (see for instance Nettle 2001).

It must be stressed that each of these topics, taken as a separate field of enquiry, has gathered considerable momentum in the last few decades. Yet it can be argued that all these phenomena, and more, are also legitimate components of a more integrated psychological account.

The case for greater integration derives from a growing body of theory and empirical evidence suggesting that components of imagination that have received separate treatment in psychology are related. For instance, work by Finke and colleagues (1996) and others (see Robertson 2002, Boden 2003) suggests that promoting people’s capacity for mental imagery enhances their creativity. A number of researchers, notably Leslie (1987) have argued that pretence and mindedness (understanding other peoples’ mental states) rely on a common ability to suspend disbelief in order to conjure with hypothetical possibilities, whether imagining that a stick is a gun, or imagining what someone else might be thinking. Further researchers, including Suddendorf and Fletcher-Flinn (1997) and Hobson (2003) have highlighted relationships between children’s capacity for mindedness and their ability to think creatively. The reality of such links is further underlined by studies of people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), who typically have severe difficulties in most or all of the imaginative skills just mentioned , with profound effects on their thinking and social relations. The characteristic configuration of imagination deficits in ASD presents a further argument for considering ways to integrate different components of imagination within a common framework.

Psychological research on the imagination is poised to benefit, not only from such ‘local’ integration across topics, but from cross-fertilisation with work in other fields. Researchers in cognate disciplines have forged ahead with some strikingly new ideas, and with ingenious combinations of theories and methods across traditional disciplinary boundaries. For instance, the field of cognitive archaeology uses studies of artefacts and archaeological remains from early prehistory, to draw inferences about the evolving imaginative capacities of the minds which created them (see for instance Mithen 2003). Cognitive anthropology combines the theories and methods of experimental psychology, with those of anthropology and evolutionary theory, to study the interplay of culturally specific and universal modes of imaginative thought (see for instance Boyer 2001). Other fruitful cross-fertilisations include marrying literary studies with cognitive science (Fauconnier and Turner 2002) and musicology with evolutionary theory (Cross 2003 a) 2003 b) 2003 c)).

The application of philosophical analysis to psychological data has a much longer tradition than these-philosophy after all is the parent discipline to psychology. But the current rapprochement of philosophy and psychology, in the approach known as philosophy of mind, is especially strong, and also particularly fruitful for the study of imagination (see for instance Currie and Ravenscroft 2002).

Finally, rapid developments in the field of cognitive neuroscience, including the use of techniques such as fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to monitor the activity of the brain during thought processes, potentially offers powerful insights into the brain and neural substrates of the imaginative mind.

This brief overview has sought to demonstrate that the study of imaginative minds - essentially the science of the imagination - is a rapidly emerging field with a promising future, benefiting, appropriately, from the creative confluence of different theoretical and methodological perspectives. The following sections provide explanatory summaries, links and other resources linked to the sessions and individual contributions of the Imaginative Minds symposium.

Note: the notes, bibliographies and links included in this website constitute a small and not necessarily representative selection of the huge range of material which exists in this topic area. However, it is hoped that the resources provided will stimulate people’s interest in looking further.

© Ilona Roth, 2004