Apart from the instinctive actions which the child does without knowing their value at all, and apart from the equally instinctive imitative way of doing them without aiming at learning more by the imitations, he proceeds in all cases to make experiments.

Generally his experiments work through acts of imitation.

He imitates what he sees some other creature do; or he imitates his own instinctive actions by setting up before him in his mind the memories of the earlier performance; or, yet again, after he has struck a fortunate combination, he repeats that imitatively.

Thus, by the principle already spoken of, he stores up a great mass of Kinaesthetic Equivalents, which linger in memory, and enable him to act appropriately when the proper circumstances come in his way.

He also gets what we have called Associations established between the acts and the pleasure or pain which they give, and so avoids the painful and repeats the pleasurable ones.
The most fruitful field of this sort of imitative learning is in connection with the "try-try-again" struggles of the young, especially children.