A published study earlier this year in Journal of Research in Personality suggests that a personality trait, openness to experience, changes what people see in the world. The worldview in the literal sense of the word. Makes them more likely to experience certain visual perceptions.
The Big 5
In the study, researchers from the University of Melbourne in Australia recruited 123 volunteers and gave them the Personality Test. Big Five, which measures extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. Specifically:
- Openness to experience (inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious)
- Awareness (efficient/organized vs. extravagant/careless)
- Extraversion (sociable/energetic vs. solitary/reserved)
- Kindness (friendly/compassionate vs. challenging/uncaring)
- Neuroticism (susceptible/nervous vs. resistant/confident)
Openness to experience is a trait that involves creativity, imagination, and a willingness to try new things. So they tested everyone who experienced a visual perception phenomenon called 'binocular rivalry'. This phenomenon occurs when each eye is shown a different image, in this case, a red patch in one eye and a green patch in the other.
Most people switch back and forth between the two incompatible images, since the brain can only perceive one at a time. But some people merge the two images into a unified red-green patch. Participants who scored higher on openness to experience were more likely to perceive this combined image.
This makes sense, according to the researchers, because openness to new experiences is linked to creativity: the ability to combine two images seems like a creative solution to the problem presented by the two incompatible stimuli.
Although research suggests that personality affects how we filter conscious experience, it is unclear exactly how this process works. The authors speculate that Overlapping neurochemicals in brain may link perception to personality.
A previous study also shows that those who score high on openness are less likely to experience inattentional blindness: inability to notice an unexpected stimulus that is in the visual field when the person is performing other tasks that demand attention.
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The news
Personality traits not only affect your outlook on life, but the way you perceive reality.
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.