On Being Moved

From Mirror Neurons to Empathy

Edited by

Stein Bråten
University of Oslo

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Amsterdam/Philadelphia
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On being moved : from mirror neurons to empathy / edited by Stein Bråten.

p. cm. (Advances in Consciousness Research, issn 1381–589X ; v.
68)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
1. Developmental neurobiology--Congresses. 2. Mirror neurons--
Congresses. 3. Interpersonal communication in infants--Physiological
aspects--Congresses. 4. Emotions in infants--Physiological aspects--
Congresses. I. Bråten, Stein.

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 Table of contents

Contributors ix
Introduction 1

Part I. Introducing the matrix and multiple layers of intersubjectivity

and empathy

chapter 1
Prologue: From infant intersubjectivity and participant movements
to simulation and conversation in cultural common sense 21
Stein Bråten and Colwyn Trevarthen
chapter 2
Applying developmental and neuroscience findings on other-centred
participation to the process of change in psychotherapy 35
Daniel N. Stern
chapter 3
The ‘Russian doll’ model of empathy and imitation 49
Frans B. M. de Waal

Part II. Mirror neurons and origins of neurosocial support

of (pre)verbal intersubjectivity and altercentricity

chapter 4
Mirror neurons and intersubjectivity 73
Pier Francesco Ferrari and Vittorio Gallese
chapter 5
Human mirroring systems: On assessing mind by reading brain
and body during social interaction 89
Riitta Hari
 Table of contents

chapter 6
Cues on the origin of language: From electrophysiological data
on mirror neurons and motor representations 101
Luciano Fadiga and Laila Craighero
chapter 7
Altercentric infants and adults: On the origins and manifestations
of participant perception of others’ acts and utterances 111
Stein Bråten
chapter 8
From speech to gene: The KE family and the FOXP2 137
Faraneh Vargha-Khadem and Frédérique Liégeois

Part III. From preverbal to verbal intersubjectivity in child development

chapter 9
Intersubjectivity before language: Three windows on preverbal sharing 149
Andrew N. Meltzoff and Rechele Brooks
chapter 10
Early speech perception: Developing a culturally specific way
of listening through social interaction 175
Barbara T. Conboy and Patricia K. Kuhl
chapter 11
On theories of dialogue, self and society: Redefining socialization
and the acquisition of meaning in light of the intersubjective matrix 201
Ivar Frönes
chapter 12
The intersubjectivity of imagination: The special case of imaginary
companions 219
Stathis Papastathopoulos and Giannis Kugiumutzakis

Part IV. Applications and therapeutic implications

chapter 13
When empathic care is obstructed: Excluding the child from the zone
of intimacy 237
Karsten Hundeide
 Table of contents 

chapter 14
Family disseminate archives: Intergenerational transmission
and psychotherapy in light of Bråten’s and Stern’s theories 257
Andrea Cabassi
chapter 15
Reaching moments of shared experiences through musical
improvisation: An aesthetic view on interplay between a musician
and severely disabled or congenital deafblind children 269
Birgit Kirkebaek
chapter 16
To sing and dance together: From infants to jazz 281
Ben Schögler and Colwyn Trevarthen
chapter 17
On circular re-enactment of care and abuse, and on other-centred
moments in psychotherapy: Closing comments 303
Stein Bråten

Author index 315

Subject index 321
 chapter 12

The intersubjectivity of imagination

The special case of imaginary companions

Stathis Papastathopoulos and Giannis Kugiumutzakis

University of Crete

In the history of psychology, imagination has been considered mainly as a private

psychological state, a compensatory way of fulfilling individual wishes, an escape
from reality, “a thing in the mind”, irrational, unsharable, a-social, even part of an
“autistic” way of thinking (Freud 1908, 1915–1916; Griffiths 1935; Piaget 1951).
In psychoanalysis, for example, imagination is considered the primary mode of
experience for the human being. The baby is captive of his unconscious wishes,
governed by the pleasure principle, forced to hallucinate since this is the most
direct way to feel satisfaction. Throughout the rest of the subject’s life, imagina-
tion retains as its basic function the satisfaction of personal desires, compensating
for an unsatisfactory reality. Freud (1908) states clearly that only the unsatisfied
person imagines. For Piaget (1951) imagination is equated with the subjective as-
similation of reality to the ego, is purely egocentric and serves only the satisfaction
of the individual’s ego. The equation of imagination with egocentric assimilation,
“imprisons” the former in the subjectivity of the individual, rendering it funda-
mentally asocial and non-intersubjective. In recent developmental theories, like in
the Theory of Mind field, imagination is depicted as a form of mental representa-
tions that do not have as a purpose to represent reality accurately (Woolley 1995).
Being a special kind of representation, imagination is inner and private, different
from real objects because representations cannot be perceived and without stabil-
ity (Wellman & Estes 1986). The contents of imagination are “inside” the head,
although sometimes they can be “projected” outside (Woolley 1997).
These views are in accordance with, and in fact derive from, the general under-
lying conception of the subject as an isolated individual, who’s trying to cope with
a “strange” world, which he must discover and where he must adapt himself. We
can mark as one of the cornerstones of this view the philosophy of René Descartes,
although we can trace important aspects of this perspective a long way back, even
to the writings of St. Augustine. James Mark Baldwin (1913) in his book on The
 The intersubjectivity of imagination 

History of Psychology clearly states that “René Descartes stands at the portal of the
temple of modern philosophy and psychology” (p. 109).
As a point of departure we have the discrete, separate and autonomous sub-
ject. A lonely thinking ego (or even an autistic desiring unconscious), able to
differentiate and distance itself from the physical (including its body) and social
environment. Mind is considered discrete from the body. It rests “inside” the body
and its contents are private, subjective and accessible only by it. The body and the
rest of the world belong to the “exterior – outside”,are objectively perceived and in
fact are nothing more than “objects”. The relationship of the subject with the world
is not direct, but mediated by various psychological and especially cognitive pro-
cesses, like representations, beliefs, “prebeliefs”,schemes, desires, or unconscious
wishes. The other does not naturally exist for the self as a person simply by perceiv-
ing its special qualities, but must be discovered or constructed through action, or
the ascription of a mind, or the transcending of the initial fusion of the baby with
the mother. The relationship of the self with the world and the other persons is not
something given that develops further, but something that must be accomplished
through development.

Imagination revisited

In order to take a different view on imagination, it is necessary to take a radically

different view on human nature and development. The recent findings from the
study of infant and child development have seriously challenged the older theories
and have established an interactional and intersubjective conception of human de-
velopment.1 We could sum up some of these recent developments in three general
positions. The first, which we could call an ontological position, maintains that
the human being is fundamentally a person, an intersubjective being. A person is
the opposite of an object, it is a being with which someone can communicate and
share attention, intentions and emotions. The communicational dimension of the
person is its most basic and fundamental predicate.
The second position, which we could name ontogenetic, claims that human
development is an intersubjective process, and the quality of its outcomes de-
pends directly on the quality of the intersubjective interactions and relations of
the person. The personal development is a process that presupposes the atten-
tiveness, cooperation, interaction and the mutual support of at least two persons.
Normal development is impossible outside an emotionally supportive intersubjec-
tive organizational context, whose perturbation can cause severe and long-lasting
malfunctions to the developing person.
According to the third position, there are various kinds of intersubjective pro-
cesses, which lead subsequently to various different kinds of experience for the
 Stathis Papastathopoulos and Giannis Kugiumutzakis

person. We can discern at least two, the second-person and first-person intersubjec-
tivity. By the second-person intersubjectivity we refer to the direct, non-mediated
interaction between two persons that is characterized by sharing, mutuality, com-
plementarity and coordination. This broad kind of category can be further divided
into subcategories depending of which of the above dimensions prevails, or on
focus of the interaction. Following Stern (1983) we can differentiate between in-
tersubjectivity based on complementarity between the two partners, and intersub-
jectivity based on sharing and tuning. Another division could be between the in-
tersubjective interactions where the focal point is between the two persons (like in
primary intersubjectivity), and those where the two persons are jointly focussed on
a third “object” (like in secondary intersubjectivity) (Bråten 1998; Hobson 2002;
Trevarthen 1998). As first-person we define that kind of intersubjectivity where
there is not a direct, un-mediated meeting between two persons. Communication
or interaction is mediated by various forms of “(meta)representations” (Bråten
1998: 1–2). The other can be the “object” in the first-person’s consciousness, ex-
perience, reflection, simulation of mind, or imagination. Although, actually never
really an “object”, but the unique kind of object that a person always is.
In the context that is sketched by these propositions, imagination can no
longer be dealt as an individual, private, locked in the head faculty. Instead we
wish to promote the idea of the fundamentally dialogical and intersubjective na-
ture and development of imagination. Before discussing the various aspects of this
proposition, we need to define what imagination does. Through imagination the
absent is made present. We conceive of imagination as mental imagery, the abil-
ity to produce, maintain and manipulate mental images (Thomas 1997, 1999a,
1999b). This ability is directly linked to perception, without which it would be
hard to imagine how it could be possible for images to be formed at all. Gibson
(1979) defined perception as the active picking up of meaning afforded in the en-
vironment. We emphasize precisely the active dimension of this process. It is in
virtue of the activity of the whole person that meaning is perceived, through one’s
corporeal action in the world. Our bodily postures, orientations and actions deter-
mine perception and shape the meaning that is laid in the environment. Perceiving
and meaning through the whole body, implies that experience and various other
processes narrowly considered as merely “cognitive”,involve the whole person.
We consider imagination as a quasi-perceptional function. Its major differ-
ence from perception is this: while imagining the person does not actively explore
the actual environment (Thomas 1999b). The subject produces certain predic-
tions and expectations about how something might be, while refraining from
searching the “real world” to perceive. The body partakes in this process in three
ways. First, the bodily exploratory activity contributes decisively, through past ex-
periences, in the formation of these predictions. Perceptual experiences provide
imagination with raw data. Second, the perceptual-motor system participates fun-
 The intersubjectivity of imagination 

damentally in the generation of mental images (Hebb 1968; Laeng & Teodorescu
2002; Neisser 1976). It was found that when subjects engage in mental imagery
of something that had actually been perceived in the past, they produce sponta-
neously eye movements that follow exactly the same scanpaths that where traced
during the perception phase (Brandt & Stark 1997; Laeng & Teodorescu 2002).
In another experiment in which the subjects where provided with verbal descrip-
tions of physical scenes not experienced before, they also generated spontaneously
eye movements that followed the direction and orientation of the described scene
(Demarais & Cohen 1998). Third, the body through its specific constitution, orga-
nization, position, and orientation in the world determines the meaning of what
is perceived, what the percepts mean to us, and the subjective nature of the ex-
perience. A widely used term to denote the organizational role of the body in
perception is “body scheme”. The body scheme may be defined as a holistic so-
matic complex or frame that orients the person and determines the way in which
experience is meaningful for the particular organism (Hermans 2003; Lakoff &
Johnson 1999; Neisser 2003). Imagination, as pointed out by Hermans (2003), is
an experience that has an “image-schematic” form. We “move” and process mean-
ings in imagination, much in the same way we move and process meanings in the
real world.
While talking about perception is usually done in the first person, a closer look
at development alters fundamentally the scene. Infants are from the beginning in-
troduced in a “second-person” world, an interpersonal and social world. Their
perception is continually structured by their interactions with other persons. Not
surprisingly, their perceptual system is well attuned to pick up the meanings that
are transmitted by another person, like eloquently shown in the case of neonatal
imitation (Kugiumutzakis 1998), and also attuned to co-perceive. Joint atten-
tion develops rapidly during the first year of life (Reddy 2003, 2005). Trevarthen
(1998, 2001) and Trevarthen and Aitken (2001) have eloquently described the
impressive development of the interpersonal interactions from primary through
secondary intersubjectivity during this period. What is entailed by this develop-
mental sequence is that perception is embedded in an intersubjective context,
where meaning is co-perceived and co-constructed.
In this developmental context imagination is coloured accordingly in two
ways. First, regarding its contents, imagination is populated by the reliving of the
most prominent and important facts of the infant’s experience. These are the inter-
actions with the important others. Stern (1985) maintains that after approximately
the second month, infants can memorize the structure of various forms of interac-
tions with other persons. He names them Representations of Interactions that have
been Generalized (RIGs), which incorporate and generate certain expectations of
action, feeling and sensation, about how an interaction may proceed. In a nearly
similar way, Bråten (2000) refers to E-motional Memory, the mnemonic retention
 Stathis Papastathopoulos and Giannis Kugiumutzakis

of interpersonal interactions and the ability to re-enact in imagination past experi-

ences of interactions from having felt both own and the partner’s movements and
feelings. Stern (1985) and Bråten (2000) maintain also that the infant can “re-live”
these memories, in the presence or the absence of a real other. Second, regard-
ing form, we regard Stern’s evoked companion and Bråten’s e-motional memory
to be perhaps the first forms of imagination. They serve not just as contents but
also as forms of imagination, much in the same way that above was attributed to
the “body schema”. Their abstract forms function as matrixes for the production,
elaboration and experience of various new imaginary states. Also they function as
meaning matrixes when the person relives in memory a real experience in order to
understand it, or re-evaluate it, or re-define it.
We also suggest that imagination from its start, perhaps, functions in a dialog-
ical mode. To the question as to why that may be so, we offer these three tentative
replies: First, because it is formed through intersubjective – dialogical experiences
that are abstracted in dialogical understanding matrixes. Second, because each new
imaginary formation or each new experience that is imaginary relieved, enters in
a virtual dialogue with already existing meaning forms, through which it is de-
fined or re-defined, contrasted and evaluated. This kind of dialogue can also be
formed between already existing meaning forms. Third, because dialogicity might
be inherent in the mind. Evidence comes from various lines of developmental
investigation, which show that the person can hold in mind several different posi-
tions synchronically. A fine portrayal of this comes from the study of infant teasing,
and the well-known paradigm of offer and withdrawal teasing (Reddy 1991). The
infant holds in mind the expectations of another person about an action and at the
same time the negation and violation of them. This can be shown to even younger
infants. In the double television replay experiment (Murray & Trevarthen 1985,
1986), the baby’s distress and avoidance to the perturbation and inappropriateness
of the interaction shows that he has certain expectations about how an interacting
partner should respond, with mutuality, attunement and complementarity, which
contrast with the actual misattuned actions of the re-played other.
An implication of the above discussion is that imagination can be communi-
cated and shared intersubjectively. More precisely, imagination can be shared in
an intersubjective context. From the study of early imitation, protoconversations,
joint attention, teasing, and language learning, we know that infants and their
communicational partners can easily and directly understand the intentions, pur-
poses, feelings and the referential point of each other. Should imagination be any
different? From the study of children’s play we know that this is not different. From
1,5–2 years of age, children are effectively able to engage with age-mates in inter-
actional and mutual pretend play (Howes 1980, 1985, 1987; Howes & Matheson
1992; Howes & Tonyan 1999; Howes et al. 1989). They are able to discern which
actions fit inside the context of pretence, and from 3,5–4 years of age they start to
 The intersubjectivity of imagination 

communicate and negotiate verbally the content and the form of pretence (Doyle
& Connolly 1989; Dunn & Dale 1984; Giffin 1984; Howe, Petrakos, & Rinaldi 1998;
Howes & Tonyan 1999; Miller & Garvey 1984).
The sharing of imagination depends and rests on various factors. We shall
list four contributing factors. First, imagination is intentional, but intentional-
ity is not a characteristic of consciousness or the mind. It is an attribute of the
embodied subject. The intentionality of the infant involves his whole corporeal
orientation and action towards an object in the environment. It carries then cer-
tain affordances that can be immediately perceived by a second person. Second,
through the course of development, a shared corpus of meaning is created and
consolidated in the context of intersubjective relations, in the form of scripts, rep-
resentations, or working models (Bowlby 1969; Nelson 1996; Stern 1985). These
co-created meanings are readily available and shared between those partners that
formed them. Third, imagination is immersed in feelings, both in the sense that it
triggers and is triggered by them, but also in the sense that its intended objects are
always intended in a certain way, with a certain value, quality and meaning. This
quality of imagination can be objectively perceived during its communication or
enactment, through the emotional presentations and the vitality affects that pro-
vide important information about its subjective meaning and quality. Fourth, a
first-person’s imagination can be understood by another person in an intersubjec-
tive context, if he is attuned to the first and tries to live the feelings, the thoughts
and the actions that are evoked in him by the sharing of the personal experience
of the first person (Bromberg 2001). We do not here refer to simulation, but to
the co-creation of the first-person’s imagination by two persons. For example in
Papastathopoulos’ (2004) research about the characteristics of children’s imagi-
nary companions, while interviewing the children about the characteristics of their
companions, some of them delayed to answer directly to some of the questions
(e.g. the colour of the imaginary companion’s eyes). The interviewer felt that the
children where at that moment thinking for the first time about the quality of those
characteristics. So, in this case we had an instance of co-creation of the character-
istics of the imaginary companion, by the child and the interviewer, which led to a
better understanding of the phenomenon by both parties. We doubt whether lone
simulation can recreate the quality of another’s subjective experience of complex
imaginary phenomena.
In summary so far, imagination, as we conceive it, entails these characteristics:

i. It is a faculty of the embodied person, directly related with perception, and has
as its major function the meaningful understanding and re-understanding of
experience.
 Stathis Papastathopoulos and Giannis Kugiumutzakis

ii. Its basic contents and meaning forms are derived from the structure and orga-
nization of the person’s actions in the environment and the interactions with
other persons.
iii. The development of imagination takes place inside the context of intersubjec-
tive interactions.
iv. Imagination and its contents can be communicated and shared in an intersub-
jective context.

The case and studies of imaginary companions

The above hypotheses can be vigorously illustrated in the special case of children’s
imaginary companions. This is a very common phenomenon of childhood. From
children’s and their parents’ reports we know that the 41–67% of preschool and
school aged children have at least one imaginary companion at some point in time
(Gallino 1991; Pearson, Rouse, Doswell, Ainsworth, Dawson, Simms, Edwards, &
Faulconbridge 2001; Singer & Singer 1981; Taylor & Carlson 1997). While there
are various conceptions of this phenomenon, some common characteristics may
be captured in the following definition (Papastathopoulos 2004): An imaginary
companion is an imaginary person that is created or adopted by the child. It is an
invisible person, except in the case where the child has personified a real object,
which he nevertheless treats as having autonomous psychological existence. The
imaginary companion has an unusual air of reality for the child, although he rec-
ognizes its imaginary nature. In order for an imaginary person to be identified as
an imaginary companion, it should have a life span of several weeks and partake
in the child’s everyday life.
We hypothesize that the creation of an imaginary companion is an expected
and direct outcome of the intersubjective nature of development and the dialog-
ical structure of imagination. Its creation is guided by the same innate motives
that guide and support the communication and interaction between persons. The
imaginary companion is a person and has the functional equivalence in imagina-
tion of a real person. It has psychological and physical attributes, and is a being
with which the child can form various interpersonal relations. The form and the
quality of the child’s real interactions influence the characteristics of his interac-
tions with the imaginary companion and vice versa (Papastathopoulos 2004). In
order to evaluate these issues, we interviewed children with and without imaginary
companions and studied their playful interactions.
 The intersubjectivity of imagination 

Method

Subjects. A total of 16 preschool aged girls took part in the study. They were
divided in two groups depending on whether they had or not imaginary compan-
ions. The first group consisted of 8 girls identified as having at least one imaginary
companion in the present time of the study. The second group consisted of 8 girls
identified as not having in the past and in the present an imaginary companion.
The mean age of the two groups was 5.4 years and 5.3 years respectively.

Procedure. The children of both groups where firstly administered an interview

about their play and their social preferences. The interview of the first group con-
tained some additional questions about the physical, psychological and relational
characteristics of the imaginary companions.
Afterwards the children were divided in 8 dyads, each of which consisted of
1 girl with imaginary companion and 1 girl without imaginary companion. Each
dyad of girls were accompanied in a room where there were playthings laid on the
floor. They were asked to play freely, and their play was videotaped for 15 minutes.

Results

Characteristics of the imaginary companions. All the girls had imaginary com-
panions with human form. The majority of the girls (62,5%, N = 5) had 1 imag-
inary companion, and the rest 2 imaginary companions (37,5%, N = 3). From
a total of 11 imaginary companions, the 7 (63,3%) had a name, while the rest 4
(36,4%) were anonymous. The majority of imaginary companions were females
(81,8%), and only two were defined as males (18,2%). Most of them were older
that the child (54,5%), and the rest were of the same (27,3%) or of a smaller
age (18,2%). They had blue eyes (72,2%) and blonde hair (45,5%). Most of the
imaginary companions were characterized by the girls as “good” (82%). One was
characterized as “so and so” and another one as “bad”.
When asked what they do with their imaginary companions, all of the girls
spontaneously responded that they play. So, the sum of the imaginary companions
functioned as playmates. The majority of the imaginary companions (82%) also
functioned as conversational partners. Only few of the girls (37,5%) reported that
their imaginary companions accompanied them to their everyday routines.
All the girls, when asked whether their imaginary companion really existed,
answered readily that they did not really exist. It is interesting that 2 girls spon-
taneously commented that they only “think of them” and another girl that her
imaginary companion existed only “in fantasy”.
 Stathis Papastathopoulos and Giannis Kugiumutzakis

Table 1. Descriptive statistics and paired-samples t values for girls speech scores during the
dyadic play sessions

Group of girls With imag. companion Without imag. comp. df t

Mean S.D. Mean S.D.
Total amount of speech 110.3 32.5 90 28.5 7 1.941*
Communicational speech 80.3 32.7 59.6 25.8 7 3.550**
Verbal enactment of pretence 44 31.7 31.5 35.4 7 1.608*
Socially directed verbal
enactment of pretence 19.4 14.7 14 13.1 7 3.330***
Negotiation of pretence 45.6 30.7 21.6 14.8 7 3.383***
* p > 0.05 ** p < 0.01 *** p < 0.02

Play and social preferences. Almost all of the girls that had imaginary companions
(87,5%, N = 7) reported that they preferred to play pretend games. On the con-
trary, only half of the girls without imaginary companions (50%, N = 4) referred
to pretend games as their favourite. All the girls from both groups, when asked
whether they preferred more to play alone or to play jointly with other children,
answered that they preferred to play with other children.

Girl’s speech during the play sessions. During the dyad’s play, the girls of the two
groups did not differ significantly on the total amount of speech (Table 1). How-
ever, the girls with imaginary companions directed their utterances significantly
more often to their play partner, than the girls without imaginary companions
(t = 3.550, df = 7, p < 0.01). That means that they used their speech more often to
communicate.
The two groups did not differ significantly on the verbal enactment of pre-
tence (t = 1.608, df = 7, p > 0.05). When the direction of the verbal enactment was
considered, a significant difference emerged. Girls with imaginary companions di-
rected their verbal enactment of pretence significantly more to their play partner,
than the girls without imaginary companions (t = 3.330, df = 7, p < 0.02). Their
verbal pretend enactment was more cooperative and social.
Negotiation of pretend play, which includes all the utterances that refer to the
discussion and determination of the pretend scenario, the identity of the objects,
the roles and the action plans, differentiated significantly the two group of girls.
The girls with imaginary companion engaged twice as more, than the other girls,
in negotiations of pretence (t = 3.383, df = 7, p < 0.02). One especially negotiation
strategy is of great importance, ulterior conversation. Giffin (1984) defines this as
the intentional proposal, by a player, of transformations in an already established
and enacted pretend scenario, without interrupting the ongoing enactment. Girls
with imaginary companion engaged significantly more in ulterior conversation,
that the girls without imaginary companion (t = 2.477, df = 7, p < 0.05).
 The intersubjectivity of imagination 

Discussion

The findings of this study confirmed the suggested hypotheses. Imaginary com-
panions where described by the girls as persons. They had some recognizable phys-
ical characteristics (human form, sex, age, eye and hair colour), one psychological
attribute (moral quality) and certain relational roles (the role of a playmate and a
conversational partner). The moral quality of the imaginary companion is a very
important attribute, since it has always an interpersonal reference. Being “good”
is essential for close interpersonal relationships and especially those that are char-
acterized by mutuality and complementarity. Those two features are essential and
necessary in order to form interactions and relations based on conversation and
playfulness. The most important feature of a person, according to Hobson (2002),
is that a person is a being with which you can relate. The fact that all the imagi-
nary companions functioned as playmates and interlocutors constitutes the most
decisive evidence of their allowing to be characterized as persons.
Girls of both groups preferred mostly to play with other children than alone.
This might be taken as an indication that there is no difference between them re-
garding their motivation for interpersonal interaction and engagement. But the
results from the analysis of the dyadic play sessions draw a different picture. The
girls with imaginary companion used their language significantly more interper-
sonally, and especially during the enactment of pretence. This shows that they have
stronger and more elaborate motives for communication and sharing with other
children. They engaged in twice as much negotiations of pretence as did the second
group’s girls. The negotiation of pretence aims at the organization and establish-
ment of a joint and shared body of knowledge, meanings, rules and procedures
for the collaborative maintenance and experience of an imaginary reality (Doyle
& Connolly 1989; Giffin 1984; Howe et al. 1998).
The use of certain negotiation strategies reveals the communicational expert-
ness of the children with imaginary companion. As it was presented, they engaged
in significantly more ulterior conversations. The use of such a strategy demands
great caution and competency since the child, without interrupting the ongoing
enactment of pretence, must introduce a new transformation or action plan, which
was not established before.
These results point to the existence of a dialogical circuit that is composed
from two interrelated sub-circuits (Papastathopoulos 2004). The first sub-circuit
is formed in real life by the interaction of the child with other persons. The second
sub-circuit is formed in fantasy by the child and his imaginary companion. During
the interactions with real others the child practices and exercises its communica-
tional and sharing abilities and its understanding of mind. Those achievements,
together with the structure of conduct of the interactions, form and organize
generalized representations or internal working models that contain expectancies
 Stathis Papastathopoulos and Giannis Kugiumutzakis

about the way that another person is expected to act in communication and also
about the forms that its development might take. The expectancies of these in-
ternal working models are transferred and applied in the context of the relation
between the child and the imaginary companion. Now, in this second circuit, the
child can practice, simulate, evaluate and re-define a wide variety of themes that
concern interpersonal relations. What the child achieves in the context of fan-
tasy feeds back and modifies the internal working models, which guide in more
advanced ways future interactions with real others.
The working and the effects of this dialogical circuit can be more obviously
traced in the previous reported finding, that girls with imaginary companions en-
gaged in more interpersonally oriented verbal enactment of pretence. We discern
here the strong effect of their relation with the imaginary companion. This con-
text contains at least two very important elements, pretence and interaction. The
children pretend that they interact (talk or play) with their imaginary companion,
since as it was presented all of them recognized its unreality. So, the children in the
context of imagination exercise and practice at the same time on interaction and
pretence. What is achieved in imagination is subsequently reflected in interactional
pretend play with real children.

A new prologue for imagination?

We have tried to show that imagination is not a secluded “castle” in the head,
that function apart from reality and especially intersubjective reality. It was pro-
posed instead that imagination is dialogically and intersubjectively constituted and
functioning. In order to portray this, we have chosen to refer especially on the phe-
nomenon of the children’s imaginary companions, whose presence is a profound
paradox for the older, individualistic theories of imagination (Papastathopoulos
2004).
Starting from this special case of child fantasy, we can now point at how de-
cisively our lives are immersed in fantasy, during our real lives. The imaginary
companion phenomenon is just one case of the imaginary persons or creatures
that populate our lives. From the mythological chimera or sphinx till Mickey
Mouse and Santa-Claus and from the TV-personas till our dialogues with deceased
loved persons, we enter into imaginary conversations, evaluations, disputes and so
on, with non-existing beings for vast amounts of time in our daily lives. These
imaginary relations and dialogues play an important role in the way we evaluate
in reality, in the decisions we take and the actions we perform. If in the name
of an objective science we deleted them from our research field, human reality
would not just be impoverished, but it would end up to be just the “psychologist’s
imagination”.
 The intersubjectivity of imagination 

A new prologue for imagination should start from pointing out that it springs
from the same soil as with engagements with the real world: that is intersubjectiv-
ity. It shares its functions, contents and aims.

Note

. For a review of the recent findings on infant development see: Akhtar and Tomasello
(1998); Bråten (1998); Butterworth (1992, 1995); Harrist and Waugh (2002); Hobson (2002);
Jaffe, Beebe, Feldstein, Crown, and Jasnow (2001); Kugiumutzakis (1998); Meltzoff and Moore
(1998); Reddy (1999, 2003); Stern (1985); Trevarthen (1977, 1998, 2001); Trevarthen and Aitken
(2001); Trevarthen and Hubley (1978); Trevarthen, Murray, and Hubley (1981); Tronick (1989).

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