Rhythmic neural activity indicates the contribution of attention and memory to the processing of occluded movements in 10-month-old infants

• Processing of occluded movements was investigated in 10-month-old infants.
• EEG measured rhythmic neural activity during movement observation.
• Occipital alpha reflected infants' preference for human over object movement.
• Frontal theta indicated mnemonic support for movement tracking and representation.
• No evidence for motoric simulation as indicated by central alpha oscillation.

Infants possess the remarkable capacity to perceive occluded movements as ongoing and coherent. Little is known about the neural mechanisms that enable internal representation of conspecifics' and inanimate objects' movements during visual occlusion. In this study, 10-month-old infants watched briefly occluded human and object movements. Prior to occlusion, continuous and distorted versions of the movement were shown. EEG recordings were used to assess neural activity assumed to relate to processes of attention (occipital alpha), memory (frontal theta), and sensorimotor simulation (central alpha) before, during, and after occlusion. Oscillatory activity was analyzed using an individualized data approach taking idiosyncrasies into account. Results for occipital alpha were consistent with infants' preference for attending to social stimuli. Furthermore, frontal theta activity was more pronounced when tracking distorted as opposed to continuous movement, and when maintaining object as opposed to human movement. Central alpha did not discriminate between experimental conditions. In sum, we conclude that observing occluded movements recruits processes of attention and memory which are modulated by stimulus and movement properties.