The Effect of Language on Visual Contrast Sensitivity

Embodied cognition and perceptual symbol theories assume that higher cognition interacts with and is grounded in perception and action. Recent experiments have shown that language processing interacts with perceptual processing in various ways, indicating that linguistic representations have a strong perceptual character. In the present study, we have used signal detection theory to investigate whether the comprehension of written sentences, implying either horizontal or vertical orientation, could improve the participants' visual sensitivity for discriminating between horizontal or vertical square-wave gratings and noise. We tested this prediction by conducting one main and one follow-up experiment. Our results indicate that language can, indeed, affect perception at such a low level of the visual process and thus provide further support for the embodied theories of cognition.