Modulation of biological motion perception in humans by gravity

Ying Wang, Xue Zhang, Chunhui Wang, Weifen Huang, Qian Xu, Dong Liu, Wen Zhou, Shanguang Chen () and Yi Jiang ()
Additional contact information
Ying Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xue Zhang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Chunhui Wang: National Key Laboratory of Human Factors Engineering, China Astronaut Research and Training Center
Weifen Huang: National Key Laboratory of Human Factors Engineering, China Astronaut Research and Training Center
Qian Xu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Dong Liu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Wen Zhou: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Shanguang Chen: National Key Laboratory of Human Factors Engineering, China Astronaut Research and Training Center
Yi Jiang: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract The human visual perceptual system is highly sensitive to biological motion (BM) but less sensitive to its inverted counterpart. This perceptual inversion effect may stem from our selective sensitivity to gravity-constrained life motion signals and confer an adaptive advantage to creatures living on Earth. However, to what extent and how such selective sensitivity is shaped by the Earth’s gravitational field is heretofore unexplored. Taking advantage of a spaceflight experiment and its ground-based analog via 6° head-down tilt bed rest (HDTBR), we show that prolonged microgravity/HDTBR reduces the inversion effect in BM perception. No such change occurs for face perception, highlighting the particular role of gravity in regulating kinematic motion analysis. Moreover, the reduced BM inversion effect is associated with attenuated orientation-dependent neural responses to BM rather than general motion cues and correlated with strengthened functional connectivity between cortical regions dedicated to visual BM processing (i.e., pSTS) and vestibular gravity estimation (i.e., insula). These findings suggest that the neural computation of gravity may act as an embodied constraint, presumably implemented through visuo-vestibular interaction, to sustain the human brain’s selective tuning to life motion signals.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-30347-y Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-30347-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30347-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().