THE effect of visual contrast on sentence reading was investigated using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Under the low contrast condition semantic integration as reflected in the N400 ERP component was delayed to some degree. The left anterior negativity (LAN) reflecting initial syntactic processes, in contrast, seemed to change its characteristics as a function of visual input. In the high contrast condition the LAN preceded the P200 component whereas in the low contrast condition it was present after this component. These ERP-data from word-by-word sentence reading together with prior results from sentence listening suggest that the physical characteristics of the input must fall within a certain optimal range to guarantee ERP-effects of fast initial syntactic processes.