Visual features influence thought content in the absence of overt semantic information
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Visual features influence thought content in the absence of overt semantic information Kathryn E. Schertz 1
&
Omid Kardan 1 & Marc G. Berman 1
# The Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2020
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 realworld 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. Keywords Environmental effects . Thought content . Visual features
A person’s surrounding physical environment can influence various affective and cognitive processes, such as working memory and mood (McMahan & Estes, 2015; Stenfors et al., 2019). It has recently been shown that the physical environment can also influence thought content and valence (Lim et al., 2018; MacKerron & Mourato, 2013; Schertz et al., 2018). This may be one pathway for these effects, as thoughts in turn can influence mood and behavior (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010; Pennebaker & Beall, 1986). Interacting with natural environments, specifically, has been shown to have mental health benefits which may be related to changes in thought patterns (Mantler & Logan, 2015; Schwartz, Dodds, O’Neil-Dunne, Danforth, & Ricketts, 2019). For example, Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-020-02121-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Kathryn E. Schertz [email protected] * Marc G. Berman [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
brief exposures to nature are associated with decreased rumination, a maladaptive pattern of self-referential thought associated with depression (Bratman, Hamilton, Hahn, Daily, & Gross, 2015). Several theories about the influence of different environments on cognition and affect, such as attention resto
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