Imagination is the thinking of remote objects – Mc Dougall.
Imagination is the consciousness of object not present to the sense stated in the more useful way. It consists in the ideational revival / return of previous sensory excitations – Angell.
Cognitive experience in the absence of actual sensory stimulation, often related to some previous percepts – G.D. Boaz.
Imagination
Imagination is mental manipulation.
Types of Imagination
Imagery
Many symbols participate of thinking and imagination. Image is just such a symbol, though its stability, vividness and intensity is less when compared to perception. Image is also different from concept. The difference between image and concept is explained as under:
Concept is general and formless, while the image is specific and has a form.
Thinking, of necessity, includes concepts, but image are not an essential part of thinking.
Images are an important constituent of imagination, but concepts are used comparatively infrequently.
Images can be classified in many types. The different major types are:
After Image: Our sense organs continue to have sensations from objects for some time after the sensation has been received. This is called after sensation image or after image. For example, the scene and incidents of a picture remain for quite sometime on the memory screen in the form of images, after the picture is seen.
Eidetic Image: These images are as stable, vivid and intense as in any perception. These types of images, similar to perception, are found more in children.
Memory Image: The vividity and extensity is less in a memory image than eidetic image, the points of similarity between it and perception are very few. As a general rule, there are more memory images than other types of images in the mind. These images also serve as reminders of the place and mode of the acquisition of the experience.
Imagined Image: The memory image has the same form which the perception exhibits but the imagined image results from the distortion of perception. Even though it is not a novel creation, it surely is a reorganization and reinterpretation of experiences. For example the image of Ravana, will be an imagined image because people do not have ten heads, in the objective world. These imagined images are found in abundance in human life, especially in day-dreams and the like which abound in these.
Dream Image: These images are not identical with imagined images. The unconscious mind playa a part in this. These images are often symbolic. In Freud’s opinion rivers, mountains, trees, depression, etc., are symbols of different male and female sex organs.
Hypnologic Image: These images are aroused when the person enters the subconscious state from the waking state. The images in this state of trance appear real and are distinct and intense.
Sensory Image: A person generates sensory images equivalent to the number of sense organs. Thus, the following sensory images are found in human beings.
Visual Imagery: These are dependent upon the knowledge received by the eyes. People with intense visual imagery remember visual experiences for a long time.
Auditory Imagery: These images depend upon the sensation receives by the ears.
Gustatory Imagery: In this, taste is experienced even in the absence of external stimuli.
Tactual Imagery: There is feeling or experience of heat or cold or weight/ mass even in the absence of external stimuli.
Olfactory Imagery: This includes imagery of smell.
Mobile Imagery: This results in the feeling of action or motion even when either or both are not taking place.
These sensory images are not equal in quantity in every person; they differ from individual to individual.