Head movements integrate with brain signals to guide attention

The human brain is part of a moving body. Yet cognitive neuroscience has long treated body movements as artifacts, leaving unclear how neural computations and overt actions combine to support cognition. Here, we propose that targeted head rotations act as behavioral filters of relevant input under distraction. We show that selective attention is jointly implemented by neural filtering (lateralization of alpha oscillations) and head rotation. In a cued auditory spatial attention task, N = 33 human participants attended to lateral targets or ignored lateral distractors. Neural oscillatory activity, the electrooculogram (EOG), and head movements were recorded using electroencephalography (EEG) and a head-mounted gyroscope. In half of the trials, we purposefully allowed free movements of the head. Listeners exhibited robust patterns of head rotation towards lateral targets, which improved task accuracy by reducing target uncertainty. Note that significant movement residues remained even when head motion was discouraged. Neural filtering, measured as decreased alpha oscillations contralateral to targets and vice versa for distractors, was assessable for conditions with and without head movement permitted but did not relate to task accuracy. Critically, neural and behavioral filters were positively linked on a trial-by-trial and on a between-subject level, with neural filtering preceding behavioral filtering in time. Together, these results underscore that selective attention arises from coordinated brain–body dynamics, highlighting the need to integrate overt movement into mechanistic models of cognition.