Naomi R Aguiar Author

Marjorie Taylor is Professor Emerit of Psychology at the University of Oregon. Her research focuses on the development of imagination and creativity, including studies of young children who invent pretend friends, older children who create imaginary worlds, and adult fiction writers who develop relationships with the characters in their novels. Her previous works include Imagination Companions and the Children Who Create Them and she was the Editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Development of Imagination. Naomi R. Aguiar is the Associate Director of Research in the Research Unit at Oregon State University Ecampus. She earned her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Oregon and served as a postdoctoral fellow in the Children's Digital Media Center at Georgetown University. Aguiar's research investigates children's concepts of real and imaginary others, including real-life peers, imaginary friends, and artificially intelligent agents, as well as children's parasocial relationships with media characters.