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Imaginary companions in childhood: Relations to imagination skills and autobiographical memory in adults

Firth, L.; Alderson-Day, B.; Woods, N.; Fernyhough, C.

Imaginary companions in childhood: Relations to imagination skills and autobiographical memory in adults Thumbnail


Authors

L. Firth

N. Woods



Abstract

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.

Citation

Firth, L., Alderson-Day, B., Woods, N., & Fernyhough, C. (2015). Imaginary companions in childhood: Relations to imagination skills and autobiographical memory in adults. Creativity Research Journal, 27(4), 308-313. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2015.1087240

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date Nov 13, 2015
Publication Date Oct 1, 2015
Deposit Date Oct 18, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Creativity Research Journal
Print ISSN 1040-0419
Electronic ISSN 1532-6934
Publisher Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 27
Issue 4
Pages 308-313
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2015.1087240

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Published Journal Article (324 Kb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© Lucy Firth, Ben Alderson-Day, Natalie Woods, and Charles
Fernyhough. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creative
commons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The moral rights of the named author(s) have been asserted.





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