The temporal dynamics of how the brain structures natural scenes

Individuals organize the evolving stream of events in their environment by partitioning it into discrete units. Event segmentation theory (EST) provides a cognitive explanation for the process of this partitioning. Critically, the underlying time-resolved neural mecha-nisms are not understood, and thus a central conceptual aspect of how humans implement this central ability is missing. To gain better insight into the fundamental temporal dy-namics of event segmentation, EEG oscillatory activity was measured while participants watched a narrative video and partitioned the movie into meaningful segments. Using EEG beamforming methods, we show that theta, alpha, and beta band activity in frontal, pa-rietal, and occipital areas, as well as their interactions, reflect critical elements of the event segmentation process established by EST. In sum, we see a mechanistic temporal chain of processes that provides the neurophysiological basis for how the brain partitions and structures continuously evolving scenes and points to an integrated system that organizes the various subprocesses of event segmentation. This study thus integrates neurophysi-ology and cognitive theory to better understand how the human brain operates in rather variable and unpredictable situations. Therefore, it represents an important step toward studying neurophysiological dynamics in ecologically valid and naturalistic settings and, in doing so, addresses a critical gap in knowledge regarding the temporal dynamics of how the brain structures natural scenes.(c) 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Individuals organize events in their environment by partitioning them into discrete units. This study reveals that the neural activity in the brain plays a critical role in this process, reflecting the key elements of event segmentation.