Seeing it both ways: Openness to experience and binocular rivalry suppression
Journal of Research in Personality March 21, 2017 Anna Antinori, Olivia Carter, Luke D. Smillie 112 citations
People high in openness to experience tend to have more flexible and inclusive cognition, and this extends to basic visual perception. In two studies using binocular rivalry—where the brain alternates between competing perceptual images—openness was positively associated with longer durations of mixed percept, a state where neither image is fully suppressed. Study 1 ruled out response bias as an explanation. Study 2 found that a positive mood induction increased mixed percept duration, especially for open individuals. The results indicate that openness is linked to differences in low-level visual perceptual experience, possibly driven by common neural processes.