Imitation. 1 7 1 



for our present purpose, though the distinction of terms 

 cannot, perhaps, be conveniently maintained, we will 

 describe the reproduction of another's action as imitation, 

 and the reproduction of the objective results of the action, 

 copying. In the case of the curve, the child first imitates 

 the action holds the pencil and moves the fingers in 

 certain definite ways. But as soon as a passable result is 

 reached, it is on this, and not on the movements, that he 

 fixes his attention. His object is no longer to imitate the 

 action so much as to reproduce the copy. Copying, though 

 often based upon imitation, as we are using the words, 

 may thus be distinguished therefrom. And just as 

 instinctive imitation is in line with, and similar in cha- 

 racter to, all other instinctive activity, so is copying in line 

 with, and similar in character to, all other intelligent 

 acquisition. Certain actions are performed, and according 

 as their results afford satisfaction or dissatisfaction, they 

 are enforced or suppressed. At the same time, just as 

 instinctive imitation is marked off from other modes of 

 instinctive activity by the fact that it gives rise in the 

 observer to a visual or other impression similar to that 

 which initiated the response, so too is copying to be 

 distinguished from other modes of intelligent activity by 

 the fact that (both from the observer's and the performer's 

 point of view) its results reproduce the stimulus * which 

 initiated the appropriate activity. And it is on these 

 results that, in copying, the attention is chiefly fixed. 



A further example will bring this out more clearly. In 

 the reproduction by the normal child of the sounds its 

 companions utter, there is far more of copying than of 

 intentional imitation, as we have used these words. The 



* This reproduction of stimulus is made a cardinal feature in Prof. Mark 

 Baldwin's treatment of imitation in his "Mental Development in the Child 

 and the Race." 



