The temporal dimension of interpersonal macro- and micro-coordinations between young children and social partners, as well as its functions, has been well documented. However, the different morphologies that bodily micro-coordination can adopt during these interactions have received considerably less attention. This research studied the temporality and morphology of spontaneous child-adult micro-coordinations and their associated functions. For this purpose, three-year-old children (N = 35) were randomly assigned to storytelling sessions based on emotional or referential stories. Using motion capture technology, we traced rapid and spontaneous coordinations between torso movements, ranging from 0 to 1000 milliseconds. Results show that both mirror-like and anatomical coordinations spontaneously emerge in interactions between 3-year-old children and unfamiliar adults. Importantly, slightly delayed in time, mirror-like coordinations predominantly occur in emotional interactions, while zero-lag, anatomical coordinations occur in referential interactions. These results suggest that these morphologies might indeed inform different functions of coordination, as previously theorized in the literature. The evidence found could contribute to a better understanding of how interpersonal coordination shapes social interaction very early in development.

幼儿与社会伙伴之间的人际宏观和微观协调的时间维度及其功能已被充分记录。然而，身体微协调在这些相互作用中可以采用的不同形态受到的关注要少得多。这项研究研究了自发的儿童-成人微协调及其相关功能的时间和形态。为此，三岁儿童（N = 35）被随机分配到基于情感或参考故事的讲故事环节。使用动作捕捉技术，我们追踪了躯干运动之间的快速和自发协调，范围从 0 到 1000 毫秒。结果表明，在 3 岁儿童和不熟悉的成年人之间的互动中，镜像和解剖学协调自发地出现。重要的是，时间稍有延迟，镜像协调主要发生在情感互动中，而零滞后的解剖协调发生在参考互动中。这些结果表明，这些形态确实可能会影响不同的协调功能，正如先前文献中所提出的那样。