Motor Synchrony, Social Learning and Closeness in Group Play Settings

Trinh Nguyen^1,2Bahar Tuncgenc³Lauren Marsh⁴Gabriela Markova⁵Lisa Horn⁶Nadine Pointner⁷Hanna Schleihauf⁸Stefanie Hoehl^6*

• ¹Italian Institute of Technology, Rome, Italy
• ²Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
• ³Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom
• ⁴University of Nottingham, Nottingham, England, United Kingdom
• ⁵Paracelsus Medical University, Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria
• ⁶University of Vienna, Vienna, Vienna, Austria
• ⁷Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Vienna, Austria
• ⁸Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands, Netherlands

Playful activities provide critical opportunities for rhythmic interactions, which may affect social and cognitive development in early childhood. Prior research suggests that motor synchrony promotes closeness and prosocial behaviour, but few studies have examined its role in social learning and in group settings. This study investigated whether motor synchrony in a clapping game, enhances preschoolers' closeness with others, imitation, over-imitation, and sharing behaviour. In a group setting, motor synchrony and asynchrony were experimentally induced between the child and two experimenters. We hypothesized that children would feel closer, imitate more, and share more with an adult partner who moved in synchrony compared to one who moved asynchronously. Bayesian analyses revealed no credible evidence that the children affiliated, imitated, over-imitated, or shared differently with their synchronous versus asynchronous partner (BF10=0.045-0.216). Manipulation checks indicated that although the adults adhered to the stimuli, there was overall low motor synchrony.. These findings highlight the challenges of inducing motor synchrony in playful group settings and raise questions about the level of synchrony necessary to impact social affiliation and learning in young children.