Bodily Rhythms Gate Action–Perception Coupling

Perception and action form a feedback loop through which organisms gather information to guide behaviour. Yet many theories still treat perception as a passive process, disconnected from the movements that shape sensory input and the bodily rhythms that sustain life. Here we advance a framework that integrates active sensing, defined as voluntary control of sensing through movement, with interoceptive physiology and links both to the architecture of action-perception coupling in active inference. We propose that cardiac and respiratory cycles modulate sensory precision and motor readiness, creating rhythmic windows during which perception and action may be most effective. Drawing on active inference, Bayesian, information, and control theories, we outline how interoceptive signals shape decisions about when to look, touch, or move, that is, the policies governing sensing and action. Within this view, agents exploit bodily rhythms through active sensing, gathering sensory data during phases of the cardiorespiratory cycle that favour perceptual precision and adjusting the timing of sensing and action when these cycles enter suppressive phases. Because respiration is partly voluntary, it provides a means to fine-tune these dynamics and align sensing with favourable physiological states. We further formalise how interoceptive and exteroceptive information interact under limited processing capacity to modulate inferences about the environment. Together, these principles establish interoception as a component of active sensing and position cognition as an embodied, temporally coordinated process emerging from the joint dynamics of brain, body, and environment.