This review paper discusses rhythmic interactions and distinguishes them from non-rhythmic interactions. We report on communicative behaviours in social and sexual contexts, as found in dyads of humans, non-human primates, non-primate mammals, birds, anurans and insects. We discuss observed instances of rhythm in dyadic interactions, identify knowledge gaps and propose suggestions for future research. We find that most studies on rhythmicity in interactive signals mainly focus on one modality (acoustic or visual) and we suggest more work should be performed on multimodal signals. Although the social functions of interactive rhythms have been fairly well described, developmental research on rhythms used to regulate social interactions is still lacking. Future work should also focus on identifying the exact timing mechanisms involved. Rhythmic signalling behaviours are widespread and critical in regulating social interactions across taxa, but many questions remain unexplored. A multidisciplinary, comparative cross-species approach may help provide answers.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Synchrony and rhythm interaction: from the brain to behavioural ecology’.

这篇评论文章讨论了有节奏的相互作用并将它们与非节奏的相互作用区分开来互动。我们报告了在人类、非人类灵长类动物、非灵长类哺乳动物、鸟类、无尾类动物和昆虫中发现的社会和性环境中的交流行为。我们讨论在二元交互中观察到的节奏实例，确定知识差距并为未来的研究提出建议。我们发现大多数关于交互信号节律性的研究主要集中在一种模态（声学或视觉）上，我们建议应该对多模态信号进行更多的工作。尽管已经很好地描述了互动节奏的社会功能，但仍然缺乏对用于调节社会互动的节奏的发展研究。未来的工作还应侧重于确定所涉及的确切时间机制。有节奏的信号行为在调节跨类群的社会互动中广泛而关键，但许多问题仍未解决。多学科、跨物种比较方法可能有助于提供答案。

这篇文章是主题问题“同步和节奏交互：从大脑到行为生态学”的一部分。