Some See It, Some Don’t: Exploring the Relation between Inattentional Blindness and Personality Factors

Kreitz, Carina; Schnuerch, Robert; Gibbons, Henning; Memmert, Daniel · 2015 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0128158

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Summary

This study investigates whether susceptibility to inattentional blindness—the failure to notice unexpected objects when attention is focused elsewhere—is linked to stable personality traits. While previous research has extensively examined situational and cognitive factors influencing this phenomenon, the role of individual differences in personality remains largely unexplored. The authors aimed to fill this empirical gap by testing the relationship between inattentional blindness and several personality dimensions, including the Big Five, behavioral inhibition/activation systems (BIS/BAS), absorption, achievement motivation, and schizotypy. The research was motivated by the need to determine if failures of awareness reflect fundamental personality differences, potentially enhancing the understanding of the mechanisms underlying selective attention. The researchers conducted an online study with a large sample of 554 participants (aged 18–59, predominantly female) who completed a static inattentional blindness task and multiple personality questionnaires. The task required participants to perform a lexical decision task (counting proper words) while an unexpected gray square was briefly presented alongside a non-word string. Participants were classified as experiencing inattentional blindness if they failed to notice the object or could not identify at least two of its features (position, color, shape). Personality was assessed using the Big Five Inventory, BIS/BAS scales, the Tellegen Absorption Scale, the Achievement Motivation Scale, and the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences. Strict exclusion criteria ensured that participants had intact vision, performed the primary task correctly, and were unaware of the task’s true purpose. The results indicated that susceptibility to inattentional blindness was associated with low levels of openness to experience and, marginally, with low achievement motivation. However, in a multiple regression analysis, only openness to experience emerged as an independent, significant negative predictor of inattentional blindness. No significant relationships were found for absorption, schizotypy, BIS/BAS scores, or other Big Five traits. The study had high statistical power (0.95), making it unlikely that null results were due to insufficient sample size. These findings suggest that individuals with a higher tendency to be open to new experiences are less prone to missing unexpected stimuli. The significance of this study lies in its demonstration that inattentional blindness is not solely determined by situational or cognitive factors but also reflects stable individual differences in personality. Specifically, it establishes a link between the perceptual failure to notice unexpected objects and the fundamental personality dimension of openness. This suggests that the general tendency to be receptive to new experiences extends to the domain of perception. By identifying openness as a key predictor, the research complements existing literature and highlights the importance of considering personality traits in understanding the mechanisms of human awareness and attention.

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• inattentional change blindness