As children grow into adulthood and then continue ageing, what happens to their imagination? Do all of us gradually lose our innate capacity to conjure up novelty to the drudgery of life, or does experience teach us to fine-tune it? Paul Harris, a developmental psychologist at Harvard University, has argued that imagination gets better with age, stating in a that young children鈥檚 pretend play generally sticks to 鈥渆veryday regularities鈥�; only later do they start imagining dramatic counterfactuals. In particular, Harris points to an apparent shift around the age of 4, when children start to be able to imagine two mutually incompatible possible outcomes for an event.
This article is part of a special series exploring the radical potential of the human imagination. Read more here.
This is supported by studies showing that children often fail creative tasks that adults pass. In one such test, participants are asked to retrieve a handled bucket. To do this, they are given a straight pipe cleaner. The solution is to bend it into a hook, but children younger than 5 rarely figure this out.
Angela Nyhout, a developmental psychologist at the University of Kent, UK, has been working on understanding how our imagination might shift with age. In as-yet-unpublished work, commissioned by English Heritage, Nyhout and her colleagues asked visitors at Dover Castle聽how they might use various historical objects, including a mould in the shape of a warrior god and a dress fastener. 鈥淥lder adults came up with more creative possibilities than younger adults,鈥� she says.
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That tracks with the work of Andrew Shtulman, a cognitive developmental psychologist at Occidental College in Los Angeles, who argued in his 2023 book Learning to Imagine that imagination is a skill that we develop with practice.
Does imagination decline with age?
The idea that imagination increases in line with the number of candles on your birthday cake isn鈥檛 uniformly accepted, however. Alison Gopnik, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, has conducted research indicating that children are more open-minded than adults. This is because they know less about the world, says Nyhout: 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 really have a very strong expectation [of what might happen], so they鈥檙e more likely to explore a number of different spaces.鈥�
What does seem to be true is that our imagination evolves. Nyhout鈥檚 team has how problems from stories could be resolved. In one, a child sits on his front porch drawing, then goes inside to get some juice 鈥� only for the wind to blow his drawings away. While older children often say the boy should have brought his drawings inside, preschoolers sometimes come up with out-of-left-field 鈥� and more imaginative 鈥� ideas like 鈥渢he wind shouldn鈥檛 have blown鈥�.
What鈥檚 more, in Nyhout鈥檚 study at Dover Castle, she found that 鈥測oung adults and adolescents seem to be a bit more flexible in their thinking鈥�. While older adults envisioned more ways that an object could be used, they generally stuck to the same domain, such as 鈥渒itchen鈥�, whereas younger adults roamed more widely.
Your mind鈥檚 eye as you get older
Nothing exemplifies these contradictions more than studies of people鈥檚 mental imagery. There is evidence that our . However, this seems to reflect changes in what we prioritise when we imagine things. 鈥淭ypical older adults are less likely to zoom in and remember the very specific details that make up a past event,鈥� says , a cognitive scientist at the University of Arizona. Instead, they focus on 鈥渢he overall gist of the memories鈥�, especially their meaning and significance.
Viewed negatively, 鈥渙ur memories, our ability to remember the details, fade as we get older鈥�, says Andrews-Hanna. However, 鈥渕aybe that鈥檚 not a bad thing鈥�. Instead of fixating on details, 鈥渨e may want to access our experiences at the level of meaning鈥�.
鈥淚 think it鈥檚 clear that our imaginations have different features at different ages,鈥� says Nyhout 鈥� but that doesn鈥檛 mean it gets better or worse. 鈥淭he child鈥檚 imagination might be optimal in some settings and inadequate in others, and vice versa,鈥� she says.
鈥淏ecause of these differences, collaboration across ages might help us to come up with solutions to pressing problems, like reducing inequality or sustainable development.鈥�
