The case of communicative intransitive gestures: further developments on a dual mechanism for motor control of action in imitation

Imitation is classically thought of as a mechanism that allows learning from demonstration. Several are the models that offer an explanation of how human imitation is accomplished. Observations of brain damaged patients, healthy subjects and brain imaging data can be found in support of both unique mechanistic models and dual route models (Chapter 1) . Two sets of evidence from neuropsychology and normal experimental psychology support the need of independent mechanisms that can account for either imitation of novel, meaningless actions or familiar, meaningful actions...