Natural body-selective motion processing in humans: Evidence from event-related potentials

As social species, perception of body motion is crucial to daily interactions, yet the underlying neural processes and their dynamics are not fully understood. While well-established EEG evidence has identified temporal markers of biological body motion, and recent fMRI research points to naturalistic body networks, the temporal markers of higher-level, naturalistic body motion processes remain unknown. The present study bridges this gap, showing that at the stage of P2, the cortex may already distinguish between the global motion of naturalistic bodies compared to objects. Exploratory analyses point to a similar body-specific modulation across stimulus species, namely human and monkey. The findings of the present study expand our understanding of body motion processes, in line with emerging, integrative models of multi-faceted body processes.