Hierarchical cortical entrainment orchestrates the multisensory processing of biological motion

Abstract

When observing others’ behaviors, we continuously integrate their movements with the corresponding sounds to achieve efficient perception and develop adaptive responses. However, how human brains integrate these complex audiovisual cues based on their natural temporal correspondence remains unknown. Using electroencephalogram, we demonstrated that cortical oscillations entrained to hierarchical rhythmic structures in audiovisually congruent human walking movements and footstep sounds. Remarkably, the entrainment effects at different time scales exhibit distinct modes of multisensory integration, i.e., an additive integration effect at a basic-level integration window (step-cycle) and a super-additive multisensory enhancement at a higher-order temporal integration window (gait-cycle). Moreover, only the cortical tracking of higher-order rhythmic structures is specialized for the multisensory integration of human motion signals and correlates with individuals’ autistic traits, suggesting its functional relevance to biological motion perception and social cognition. These findings unveil the multifaceted roles of entrained cortical activity in the multisensory perception of human motion, shedding light on how hierarchical cortical entrainment orchestrates the processing of complex, rhythmic stimuli in natural contexts.