Seeing it both ways: Openness to experience and binocular rivalry suppression
Anna Antinori, Olivia Carter, Luke D. Smillie
Journal of Research in Personality March 21, 2017 DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2017.03.005 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Intervention | positive mood induction |
| Keywords | Binocular rivalry Openness to experience Cognitive psychology Mood Visual perception Cognition |
| Citations | 112 |
| Key findings | Openness to experience is positively associated with longer durations of mixed percept during binocular rivalry, and this effect is enhanced by positive mood induction. |
Abstract
Openness to experience is characterised by flexible and inclusive cognition. Here we investigated whether this extends to basic visual perception, such that open people combine information more flexibly, even at low-levels of perceptual processing. We used binocular rivalry, where the brain alternates between perceptual solutions and times where neither solution is fully suppressed, mixed percept. Study 1 showed that openness is positively associated with duration of mixed percept and ruled out the possibility of response bias. Study 2 showed that mixed percept increased following a positive mood induction particularly for open people. Overall, the results showed that openness is linked to differences in low-level visual perceptual experience. Further studies should investigate whether this may be driven by common neural processes.