In order to analyze the topic of the article in detail, it is necessary to find out the meaning of the word “agglutination”. This term in psychology defines a combination of seemingly incompatible in reality properties, qualities or parts of objects.
The human imagination is able to actively create new images. The stimulus for this is both the general ups and downs of life, as well as serious personal motives. The process, or rather the way in which these images are created , is precisely the very agglutination, which will be discussed later.
Agglutination: what is it (definition)
Before doing anything, a person creates a mental image of what he will succeed, and draws up a plan of his actions to achieve the goal. We owe all this to the imagination. It obeys a certain regularity and exists due to other features of the human brain - the ability to analyze and synthesize. With their help, the initial idea of something is decomposed into its component parts (analysis), and then the compound obtained in a new combination (synthesis) is combined.
Agglutination in psychology is also one of the analytical-synthetic processes. Moreover, in one image, a person collects several figures, types, characters, even if incompatible at first glance. For example, the well-known centaurs - half horses, half people, or a fairy hut with chicken legs - all this is the result of agglutination of images, which made them unusual, vivid and memorable.
The use of agglutination in creativity
In art, many techniques of the imagination - agglutination, emphasis - are often used. So, for example, Leo Tolstoy admitted that he wrote the image of Natasha Rostova from the novel “War and Peace” from two women who really existed - the wife of Sophia and her sister, Tatyana Bers. The combination of two types of women - one impetuous, lively and addicted, and the second - feminine and tender - helped to give birth to an integral and absolutely vital character.
Pointing, or focusing attention to no less degree helps to achieve a memorable result. This technique is especially loved by cartoonists. The image of the talker as a person with an excessively long tongue, or a lover of beer, endowed with a huge belly, allows emphasizing the most essential in the appearance and habits of the people depicted in the figure.
In literary works, emphasis is made at the time of the character's description. The attention of the reader to any of his qualities allows us to convey the essence of the nature of this character without further ado and even determine the author’s attitude to it.
Agglutination of the image is not accidental
In order to better understand what agglutination is, it should be remembered that this process in the human imagination is most often not an accidental “puzzle assembly”. The combination of different details into a single image helps the existing idea, design, as well as other motives that sometimes exist on a subconscious level.
And the starting point for transformation is experience. And the more diverse and wider it is, the brighter and richer the imagination. At the same time, one should not confuse mechanical shoveling, regrouping of ready-made and already known elements with the creation of an integral and viable image. That is, the pictures that we use in our imagination, falling within the framework of the new look, also slightly change their appearance, summing up and generalizing into a single whole.
Techniques for the transformative activity of the imagination
Agglutination, accentuation, typification - these are the methods by which the transforming activity of the imagination is carried out.
Earlier we mentioned the underlining (accentuation) of traits, which is achieved by changing the proportions of the image. This method is applicable not only for caricature images, but also for creating fantastic characters. Vivid examples of such hyperbole are heroes of legends and fairy tales - for example, Svyatogor, who could easily put a famous hero Ilya Muromets in his pocket, and the earth shook from his whistle.
This presentation of the size and physical strength of the hero helps the author prove the significance, grandeur of this image and demonstrate the inner strength that he possesses.
By the way, a strong understatement of a character (for example, a little boy with a finger) can serve the same purpose, demonstrating the character's inner virtues with contrast.
An equally important role in presenting the features of an artistic image is played by the typification technique - combining in one fictional character typical features of a number of real-life heroes, making him, thus, a representative of this group of people. This is also a method of synthesizing in the process of imagination, and vivid examples of this can serve as the images of Onegin, Pechorin, Oblomov, Othello and other heroes, which are a generalized portrait of the author's contemporaries.
Creative imagination
We repeat that agglutination in psychology is one of the methods of creative imagination that helps to create a new original image or idea. It should be noted that the term “new” in this case has a dual meaning. After all, a new image can be such both objectively and subjectively.
- In the first case, such an idea does not exist either materialized or virtual. That is, it is such an original image that it does not repeat the existing ones.
- And in the second case, the novelty is obvious only to a specific person. That is, a subjectively new image is a discovery only for its author, but at the same time repeats the existing ones.
Once again about what agglutination is
The work of the human imagination, as is clear from the above, uses a rather limited number of techniques - agglutination, accentuation and typing. But even with such a small arsenal, it can do a lot.
Thus, agglutination in psychology is not only a method of creating an artistic image on canvas or in a literary work, but also the possibility of embodying completely new ideas in science and technology. Creative imagination allows the inventor to first mentally assemble disparate details into a single whole, and then apply this in practice, making discoveries and moving progress.
Manifestations of agglutination in psychiatry
Unfortunately, agglutination in psychology is also a term denoting one of the symptoms of exacerbations of schizophrenia.
By it is meant a condition in which the patient loses the ability to distinguish between certain concepts, since their gluing occurs in his brain. By the way, due to this, a large number of neologisms appears in the vocabulary of such people (a person will come up with completely new words or endow old ones with different meanings).
The agglutination process leads to the fact that the patient with schizophrenia disrupts the perception of his own "I" and surrounding reality. For example, in some cases, patients are not able to distinguish themselves from other people or even objects. And what happens in the outside world in their imagination is closely intertwined with some bodily functions (for example, rain is their tears, etc.)