Predictive processing in biological motion perception in audio-visual context

Visual perception of biological motion plays a crucial role in comprehending our environment. Despite the well-established contribution of multisensory integration to our understanding of biological motion perception, whether expectations affect our biological motion perception in audio-visual settings remains unexplored. The present study investigates the impact of congruent and incongruent auditory cues on detecting biological motions presented in point-light display form, exploring the impact of predictive processing on biological motion perception in the audio-visual context. We conducted an experiment where participants viewed either congruent auditory priors, which gave the correct information about the biological motion, or incongruent conditions. Participants were required to detect the biological motions as fast and accurately as possible. Our findings revealed shorter reaction times and higher accuracy when the trials were congruent than incongruent ones. Overall, our results highlight that the brain’s use of prior information can change our detection of human motion.