Imitation

Reproducing an observed action or its organisation. Model-specific matching must be distinguished from increased general activity, emulation of an outcome or a response elicited by many interesting stimuli.

Selective reproduction of a demonstrated means in relation to contextual constraints and inferred goals. A behavioural difference can also admit attentional or perceptual explanations; selective copying alone is not a unique signature of explicit belief reasoning.

A compatibility effect in which observed task-irrelevant actions influence action execution. It is not necessarily deliberate copying, wholly uncontrolled behaviour or a pure measure of empathy.

Whether an observed action matches the action a participant must perform, distinguished experimentally from spatial stimulus–response compatibility.

The problem of mapping another person’s perceptible action onto the observer’s own motor commands, despite differences in viewpoint and access to bodily feedback.

Model-specific action matching during the neonatal period. Early positive reports and subsequent disputed replication and reanalysis make this a useful case for distinguishing whether an action occurs, whether it is selectively elicited by its matching model, and whether it supports a broad theory of imitation.^[ref]

Reproduction of an observed action after a delay without continuous access to its demonstration. It supplies a nonverbal memory measure, with baseline and control conditions needed to exclude actions likely to occur without the prior demonstration.