Yes! This is very relevant osf.io/preprints/ps...

p.s. Stay tuned for the neural correlates of these effects (spoiler: we see interesting effects in early sensory cortices!)

These findings provide key insight into the sophisticated mechanisms underpinning the efficiency of face-to-face communication, and raise fascinating and timely questions about the evolutionary, developmental and cultural origins of priors in social interaction.

Crucially, people have a stronger prior tendency to combine vocal and bodily signals when they convey the same communicative intent. Thus, the brain uses prior expectations to bind multisensory signals that carry converging meaning.

By comparing several computational architectures, we clearly show that observers solve audiovisual causal inference using non-optimal heuristics that nevertheless approximate the optimal Bayesian solution with high accuracy.

We addressed this question by framing face-to-face communication as a Bayesian Causal Inference problem. Combining psychophysics with computational modelling, we formally tested whether prior expectations arbitrate between the integration and segregation of vocal and bodily signals.

Face-to-face communication is complex: what we say is coupled with bodily signals, which may or may not carry converging meaning. How does the brain determine which multisensory signals belong together and which, instead, must be kept apart?

poking @cimecunitrento.bsky.social friends in particular 😉

This result speaks to the critical importance of bottom-up advocacy, as well as a leadership environment that is sensitive to input and willing to invest.