Abstract
Human awareness is highly limited, which is vividly demonstrated by the phenomenon that unexpected objects go unnoticed when attention is focused elsewhere (inattentional blindness). Typically, some people fail to notice unexpected objects while others detect them instantaneously. Whether this pattern reflects stable individual differences is unclear to date. In particular, hardly anything is known about the influence of personality on the likelihood of inattentional blindness. To fill this empirical gap, we examined the role of multiple personality factors, namely the Big Five, BIS/BAS, absorption, achievement motivation, and schizotypy, in these failures of awareness. In a large-scale sample (N = 554), susceptibility to inattentional blindness was associated with a low level of openness to experience and marginally with a low level of achievement motivation. However, in a multiple regression analysis, only openness emerged as an independent, negative predictor. This suggests that the general tendency to be open to experience extends to the domain of perception. Our results complement earlier work on the possible link between inattentional blindness and personality by demonstrating, for the first time, that failures to consciously perceive unexpected objects reflect individual differences on a fundamental dimension of personality.
Highlights
One of the most essential functions of our cognitive system, the ability to selectively prioritize certain sensations, sometimes leads us to inadvertently exclude other sensory information from awareness: We often miss an object right in front of our eyes if it occurs unexpectedly and our attention is otherwise engaged
Since we only included data from participants who noticed the additional gray square in the control condition and correctly identified two of its three features, missing the critical unexpected object cannot be attributed to unwanted physical or technical difficulties
We investigated the link between inattentional blindness and a multitude of fundamental personality traits
Summary
One of the most essential functions of our cognitive system, the ability to selectively prioritize certain sensations, sometimes leads us to inadvertently exclude other sensory information from awareness: We often miss an object right in front of our eyes if it occurs unexpectedly and our attention is otherwise engaged. This phenomenon has been labeled inattentional blindness [1], and it occurs in diverse and potentially critical situations. Considering the potential harm and impact of such oversight, researchers have begun to unravel the underlying mechanisms.
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