Visual features influence thought content in the absence of overt semantic information

Abstract

It has recently been shown that the perception of visual features of the environment can influence thought content. Both low-level (e.g., fractalness) and high-level (e.g., presence of water) visual features of the environment can influence thought content in real-world and experimental settings where these features can make people more reflective and contemplative in their thoughts. It remains to be seen, however, if these visual features retain their influence on thoughts in the absence of overt semantic content, which could indicate a more fundamental mechanism for this effect. In this study, we removed this limitation by creating scrambled edge versions of images, which maintain edge content from the original images but remove scene identification. Nonstraight edge density is one visual feature that has been shown to influence many judgements about objects and landscapes and has also been associated with thoughts of spirituality. We extend previous findings by showing that nonstraight edges retain their influence on the selection of a Spiritual & Life Journey topic after scene-identification removal. These results strengthen the implication of a causal role for the perception of low-level visual features on the influence of higher order cognitive function, by demonstrating that in the absence of overt semantic content, low-level features, such as edges, influence cognitive processes.