Expectations regarding action sequences modulate electrophysiological correlates of the gaze-cueing effect

Predictive mechanisms of the brain are important for social cognition, as they enable inferences about others' goals and intentions, thereby allowing for generation of expectations regarding what will happen next in the social environment. Therefore, attentional selection is modulated by expectations regarding behavior of others (Perez-Osorio, Müller, Wiese, & Wykowska, 2015). In this article, we examined-using the ERPs of the EEG signal-which stages of processing are influenced by expectations about others' action steps. We used a paradigm in which a gaze-cueing procedure was embedded in successively presented naturalistic photographs composing an action sequence. Our results showed (a) behavioral gaze-cueing effects modulated by whether the observed agent gazed at an object that was expected to be gazed at, according to the action sequence; (b) the N1 component locked to the onset of a target was modulated both by spatial gaze validity and participants' expectations about where the agent would gaze to perform an action; (c) a more positive amplitude, locked to the shift of gaze direction for action-congruent gaze, relative to incongruent and neutral conditions-over parieto-occipital areas in the time window between 280 and 380 ms. Taken together, these findings revealed that confirmation or violation of expectations concerning others' goal-oriented actions modulate attentional selection processes, as indexed by early ERP components.