Firth Lucy, Alderson-Day Ben, Woods Natalie, Fernyhough Charles
Department of Psychology, Durham University, Durham, UK.
Creat Res J. 2015;27(4):308-313. doi: 10.1080/10400419.2015.1087240. Epub 2015 Nov 13.
The presence of a childhood imaginary companion (IC) has been proposed to reflect heightened imaginative abilities. This study hypothesized that adults who reported having a childhood IC would score higher on a task requiring the imaginative construction of visual scenes. Additionally, it was proposed that individuals who produced more vivid and detailed scenes would also report richer autobiographical memories, due to a shared reliance on imaginative abilities in construction and recollection. Sixty participants (20 with an IC), completed an adapted scene construction procedure and an autobiographical memory questionnaire. Participants reporting a childhood IC scored significantly higher on scene construction and rated themselves as more imaginative. Scene construction scores were also moderately related to the richness of autobiographical memories, although this was almost entirely due to scores on the thought/emotion/action component of scene construction. Autobiographical memory was unrelated to the presence of an IC. Implications for overlapping and dissociable aspects of imagination and memory are discussed.
童年想象伙伴（IC）的存在被认为反映了较高的想象能力。本研究假设，报告有童年IC的成年人在一项需要对视觉场景进行想象构建的任务中得分会更高。此外，有人提出，由于在构建和回忆中对想象能力的共同依赖，产生更生动、详细场景的个体也会报告更丰富的自传体记忆。60名参与者（20名有IC）完成了一个改编后的场景构建程序和一份自传体记忆问卷。报告有童年IC的参与者在场景构建上得分显著更高，并认为自己更具想象力。场景构建得分也与自传体记忆的丰富程度呈中度相关，不过这几乎完全归因于场景构建中思想/情感/行动部分的得分。自传体记忆与IC的存在无关。文中讨论了想象和记忆的重叠及可分离方面的影响。
