We begin pretending very early in childhood and continue uninterrupted throughout adult life and technology in itself is able to bring this into sharp focus. For example, pretending figures prominently in the design and evaluation of digital technologies. Pretending lets us imagine that these technologies have personalities, agency and dispositions. We also pretend when we watch a movie, play a game and experience virtual reality. Pretending is how we feel present, transported and immersed by technology. It will be argued that cognition begins and ends with pretending and that recent research is now beginning to identify the neural bases of this ability.
