1, light spot connection: the connection between light spots is a mechanism of unintentional association and unintentional imagination. If the result is visual, it is called imagination.
The connection between light spots is nothing more than two reasons: the diffusion of excitation energy or the attraction of light spots, and the groundbreaking connection. When the excited energy spreads forward from the light spot and reaches the perceptual unit (or representation) behind it, the energy gathers to form a light spot and appears in the conscious layer, which is the association or imagination formed by diffusion. For example, when you see red flowers, you will naturally think of Valentine's Day, but you have no intention of associating them. When I see the red flowers, I naturally think of the image of Honghuagang (the Martyrs Cemetery of the Revolution of 1911), but I have no intention of imagining it.
Attracting bright spots and opening up connections are also common reasons. If you hear the story of Song Wu killing a tiger, the excited energy spreads from the sound stimulation point to their respective perceptual units, activating the associated image representations: "Song Wu" activates the image representations of the ancients, warriors, strong men and so on. And they were inadvertently spliced and processed, forming the image representation of a brave man in ancient costume; "Tiger" activates an image representation of an adult tiger; "Beating" activates the image representation of fighting. The appearance of these images has gathered enough exciting energy to ascend to the level of consciousness. Due to the attraction of light spots and pioneering connection, a new image of a strong man in ancient costume appeared, holding his fist high and holding down the tiger.
2. Active shaping: When you see the uneven wall with plastering falling off, the stimulus information is inadvertently shaped actively through the sensing unit, so some places on the wall are like some animal patterns, and some areas are like landscape patterns. Many times, looking up at the blue sky and white clouds and feeling what some clouds look like are all created by perceptual units.
To sum up, unconscious imagination can happen without subjective efforts, but it is definitely not "without reason". For example, there is a reason for the above-mentioned example of "Song Wu killing tigers" and imagining what animal patterns the wall looks like. Of course, sometimes, we really have an imagination that seems to be unable to find the reason. For example, it suddenly occurred to us that we could fly into the sky by installing a jet device under the chair (this is inspiration or fantasy); Suddenly want to buy flowers for my girlfriend, imagine her smiling, and so on. These unintentional imaginations seem to have no cause. In fact, this is the result of some exciting energy automatically spreading along the existing neural pathways during the activity just now. It didn't come out of nowhere.
Intentional imagination can be divided into recreative imagination and creative imagination; Fantasy is a special form of imagination, which can be divided into ideal and fantasy. In addition to the mechanism of unintentional imagination mentioned above, the mechanism of intentional imagination is more complicated, which is introduced below.
(A) to recreate the imagination
Reconstruction of imagination is a psychological process of forming a new image in the human brain according to the description of language or the instructions of patterns, models and symbols. For example, the woodcutter imagines the image of mechanical parts according to the drawings; The engineer imagined the image of the building according to the architectural blueprint.
(B) to create imagination
Creative imagination means that people independently create new images in their minds according to the needs of goals and tasks, not according to ready-made language descriptions, ready-made drawings and models.
Because creative imagination has the characteristics of initiative, independence and novelty, it is more complicated and difficult than recreating imagination. It requires in-depth analysis and synthesis of existing materials, as well as the initial process of conception, processing, transformation and creation of new images in mind. For example, create a new machine structure image.
Creative imagination can be divided into hypothetical imagination, fantasy imagination and heuristic imagination.
There are four forms of information processing in creative imagination, the first is logical form; The second is the form of trial; The third is the combination of logic and experimentation, and the fourth is inspiration.
In short, intentional imagination requires knowledge, thinking and even hard work.