Imitation of a pose or a movement has two information processing components.
The first is perceiving the pose or action to be copied and extracting the
joint angles. The second component is copy the perceived joint angles and
use them to control the pose and movement of the perceiver.
In the animal kingdom we see many examples of copying perceived
behaviour, such as in herd, schools of fish, or for imprinting.
I use an aerobics fitness instructor and her pupil as example. However,
there are many more in athletics or at work that rely on an apprenticeship
system where the learner observes and copies what the master is doing.