Imitation, Skill Learning, and Conceptual Thought: An Embodied, Developmental Approach

It is the goal of this chapter to offer a strategy for moving from imitation to conceptual thought. First, I accept that imitation plays a vital role in accounting for the facility with which human beings acquire abilities, but I argue that successful task performance is not identical to intelligent action. To move beyond first-order behavioral success, I suggest that the orientation that humans have toward the means of intentional actions, i.e., the orientation required for imitation, also drives us to perfect our skills in a way that
produces fertile ground for florid thought.

In section 1, I propose that the difference between animal and human copying lies in what I call the “means-centric orientation.” In section 2, I explore three characteristic features of intelligence and claim that the first-order behavioral success that results from imitation is not characterized by these features. In the final section of this paper, I argue that the means-centric orientation, when inverted onto itself, motivates skill refinement and, as such, allows us to reach the intermediate level of cognitive development. It is at this level, through the individuation and recombination of action elements, that we see a basic syntax of action arise and, with it, the characteristic features of intelligence
emerge.