Imagination as Expansion of Experience

Abstract

This paper proposes a developmental view on imagination: from this perspective, imagination can be seen as triggered by some disrupting event, which generates a disjunction from the person's unfolding experience of the "real" world, and as unfolding as a loop, which eventually comes back to the actual experience. Examining recent and classical theorization of imagination in psychology, the paper opposes a deficitary view of imagination to an expansive notion of imagination. The paper explores Piaget, Vygotsky, Harris and Pelaprat & Cole consider: 1) What does provoke a "rupture" or disjunction? 2) What are the psychological processes involved in the imaginary loop? 3) What nourishes such processes? 4) What are the consequences of such imaginary loop, or what does it enable doing? The paper proposes to adopt an expansive view of imagination, as Vygotsky proposed-a perspective that has been under-explored empirically since his seminal work. To stimulate such sociocultural psychology of imagination, two empirical examples are provided, one showing how children make sense of metaphor in an experimental setting, the other showing a young person using a novel met at school as symbolic resource.Keywords Imagination . Gap filling . Development . Sociocultural research Imagination has been the object of attention since antiquity, and regularly comes to the fore of philosophical or scientific reflection (see Byrne 2005;Crapanzano 2004;Furlong 2004;Murphy et al. 2010;Roth 2007). In this paper we want to synthesize some of the classical contributions to developmental psychology, and show the limits of some of the dichotomies and divisions traditionally raised by the issue. Rather than a chronologic perspective, we propose an analytic one; eventually, approaching the issue from a sociocultural perspective, we sketch an alternative model to apprehend imagination.

Interactive dynamics of imagination in a science classroom

“…Here our new suggestion, the spatial dimension, appeared to sit well with Zittoun's and Gillespie's theory as it provided a way to address the movement of imagination in more detail (cf. Zittoun & Cerchia, 2013). Our framework also highlighted loop dynamics in relation to the dimension of generality when the students repeatedly moved between general descriptions of more distal objects and events and their particular experiences in their joint meaning making.…”

“…While educational interest in imagination has recently increased, prior research has not adequately accounted for how imagination is realized in and through classroom interactions, nor has it created a framework for its empirical investigation. Drawing on a theory of imagination situated in cultural psychology (Zittoun et al, 2013;Zittoun & Gillespie, 2016), we propose such a framework. We illustrate our framework with a telling case (Mitchell, 1984) …”

“…They can be characterized along the dimensions of temporality, plausibility and generalization (Zittoun & Cerchia, 2013). For example, discussing futuristic societal utopias during civic lessons, reading about ancient Egypt or daydreaming about the upcoming summer holiday represent different temporal characteristics, plausibilities, and generalizations as loops of imagination.…”

Young Children’s Imaginative Play and Dynamic Literacy Practices in the Digital Age

“…Researchers have long identified imaginative play as a vital component in the normal development of a child (Bergen, 2002;Garvey, 1993;Vygotsky, 1976). Imagination differs from normal reality, the material environment and the social presence of others and, as such, can widen our experience of the world (Zittoun & Cerchia, 2013). Imagining creates a new space or form of thinking with which children can surpass their own level of understanding and create a zone of proximal development for themselves (Vygotsky, 1962).…”

Behavioural Neurology of Personality Disorders: A Bi-dimensional Model

“…Imagination is the main tool for human creativity. It is the characteristic that is most representative of the uniqueness of human mental abilities [233][234][235].…”