{{Unreferenced, date=June 2019
"Constructive" or "productive" imagination denotes the process resulting in formation of novel mental images, as opposed to
simple recall that refers to remembering of a previously seen picture. On a neurological level, simple recall involves activation of an existing
object-encoding neuronal ensemble (objectNE) in the
posterior cortical hot zone
The term posterior cortical hot zone was coined by Christof Koch and colleagues to describe the part of the neocortex closely associated with the minimal neural substrate essential for conscious perception. The posterior cortical hot zone includes ...
; synchronous resonant activity of the objectNE results in conscious perception of the object. Constructive imagination, on the other hand, involves various mechanisms that modify an objectNE or assemble different objectNEs into novel combinations.
Constructive imagination is further divided into active imagination driven by the
prefrontal cortex (PFC) and spontaneous PFC-independent imagination such as REM-sleep
dream
A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5 to 20 minutes, althou ...
ing,
daydreaming
Daydreaming is the stream of consciousness that detaches from current, external tasks when attention drifts to a more personal and internal direction. This phenomenon is common in people's daily life shown by a large-scale study in which partici ...
,
hallucinations
A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the qualities of a real perception. Hallucinations are vivid, substantial, and are perceived to be located in external objective space. Hallucination is a combinati ...
, and spontaneous
insight
Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect within a particular context. The term insight can have several related meanings:
*a piece of information
*the act or result of understanding the inner nature of things or of seeing intu ...
.
Neuroscience