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cognition and imagination notes

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this document composes of information, explanations and components of cognition and imagination. the notes explain the link between the two processes, examines how each system works, and provides various papers and examples to explain the underlying theories and arguments.

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  • January 20, 2021
  • 28
  • 2020/2021
  • Class notes
  • Doctor pitman
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megancartwright
Cognition and imagination
Block 2
2020


Lecture 1
Imagination


Imagination observations
 A lot like perceiving, but alos very different
 Sometimes perceiving seems to involve imagining
o Known as “filling in” details or perceptual features
 Imagery is so vivid, it is almost like perceiving
 We have no trouble distinguishing between perception and imagination
 Imagination is effortless
o Ie. Imagining the taste of your food
 Imagining seems like remembering
 More like a constructive exercise
o Eg. Things that havent or couldn’t happen, creative imagining
 Can be closely or loosely based on reality

Varieties or senses of the imagination
 Imagination as imagery
o Not necessarily visual
 Imagination as recall or episodic memories
 Imagining the body in action
o Kinetic imagination
 Imagination as fantasy or pretense

What is imagination?
 The formation of a mental image of something that is not present to the
senses
 The act of conceiving an alternative to reality
o Thinking of things different from how they exist in the world
 Experiences, scenes in the “minds eye”
 Emphasis on imagery
o But also conceiving and thinking
 Representation of an object without its presence

Evolutionary perspectives:
 More mundane, more cognitive
 Emphasis on action and deciison making
 Less unique

Human varieties of imagination
 Variables associated with human imagination
 Characteristics that define human conception of imagination
 According to Mithen

, o Engaging with maginary worlds ie. Fantasy
o Imagined perspectives – the world through someone elses eyes
o Narrative imagination – love of stories
o Imaginative leaps
 Combining the ordinary and extraudinary to obstain new
insight


Lecture 2
Evolution: the basics

Evolutionay questions in psychology
 Asking how and why some feature of human psychology might have
evolved

 Questions about origins, heredity, function, and the forces that shaped the
mind over geological timespans

Evolutionary questions about imagination

 At what point in the evolution of multicellular organisms with nervous
systems did imagination emerge? In what form?

 Was imagination an adaptation? Did it serve some fitness-enhancing
purpose, such that it was selected for and shaped over time?

 Or was it a by-product of some other cognitive-behavioural adaptation?

 If there are distinctively human forms of imagination, when did these
emerge, and why?

 How did play and pretend play evolve?

Important concepts

 Evolution

 Natural Selection ➢Adaptation

 Fitness

 Function and design

What is evolution?

 Change

 Progress?

,  Descent with modification ➢Reproduction

o Some offspring are different

Evolution and the ideas of progress
 Theatre analogy
o Three tiers of seats are shown
o Are the highest seats better than the lowest seats near the stage?
o Answer: no they are not
 Bacteria were the first notions of life that evolved first and
have already colonized most of the available environments
for such organisms
 Newcomers (us) are left to find new, more advanced ways
of exisiting
 There is no universal law of progressive evolution

Natural selection:

 Darwin’s special contribution to evolutionary thinking and theory

o ONE mechanism that can explain a lot of change in evolution

 NOT the same thing as evolution

o Generally, natural selection obstructs evolution

Darwins inspiration

 Breeding and artificial selection

o Eg. Different types of dog breeds

o The reasons they come to look the way they do

o Saem species, variations amongst them

o Human beings have controlled the breeding and selection by cross
breeding for desirable characteristics

 Artifical selection

o Over many years and generations, humans have bred plants and
animals in ways that seek to enhance or exaggerate certain
characteristics and eliminate others

o From a common ancestor, you can get great diversity

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