Brief reportReality check: Prior exposure facilitates picture book imitation by 15-month-old infants

•This is the first study to show imitation of a 3-step sequence from a picture book by 15-month-olds.•This is the first study to show that prior exposure to the stimuli facilitates picture-book imitation.

We examined whether 15-month-olds could imitate a novel action sequence from a picture book, and whether or not pre-exposure to the objects before reading the book would facilitate imitation. We found that infants only imitated from a picture book above baseline when they had previously interacted with the objects.