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Ментальные образы и их роль в креативном мышлении
The problem of mental images (mental imagery) has been actively discussed over the past decades in cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. Mental images are associated with the work of productive imagination, and creative thinking. They can also be considered as catalysts for generating new meanings, as key starting points for putting forward new ideas and trends in science and culture. As a rule, the following features of mental images are distinguished. 1) This is a quasi-perceptual experience of consciousness, mental images are
similar to the experience of perception, but they arise in the absence of an intermediate external stimulus. 2) A vivid hypothetical representation is created in the mind, similar to a certain picture. 3) A hypothetical internal representation of any kind may arise, i.e. mental images can be not only visual but also sound, kinesthetic (motor), tactile (touch), etc. Some images can be closely linked to others, i.e. there is a synesthesia of feelings that is inherent in gifted people. As a product of consciousness, mental images are intentional, they are always directed at something and are images of something. Mental images can anticipate events, imagine that the desired is
achieved, or reveal fears, risks, i.e. to test various possibilities of the course of future events. Mental images also provide a semantic basis for language. The most interesting is to study how mental images are associated with creative thinking, with the work of productive imagination, and with the inventive abilities of human intelligence. Even judging by the very term “mental image” or “mental imagery”, it becomes clear that we are talking about such products of the human consciousness in which feelings and reason are connected, fused, intertwined, the image and its understanding, interpretation, i.e. the mental and the perceptual, sensory components are integrally
represented. This is of particular significance in connection with an understanding of the nature of human creativity, since new knowledge in science, guesses, and hypotheses are built through initially arising thought-images, through the work of visual thinking, which is then supplemented by painstaking work to enter new knowledge into the structures of existing theories or building new theoretical constructs.