Open-minded people see the world differently than closed-minded people. They are always ready to experience new sights, sounds, and different types of people. Open-minded people also have a greater capacity to change their perspectives and grow over time. Now, new research published in The Journal of Research in Personality suggests that open-minded people also see the world differently from a visual standpoint.
For the study, researchers administered the big five personality tests to participants, measuring their extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. They were then given a test for binocular rivalry. Participants were shown a patch of red in one eye and a patch of green in the other. Those who scored higher for openness were able to merge both images into one unified red-green patch. Those who scored lower for openness tended to switch back and forth between the incompatible images.
How open minded are you? Take a close look and the red and green boxes below. If your mind merges the images together instead of alternating between eyes, you most likely score higher on the openness to experiences test.
Open-minded people also have a different way of filtering sensory information than those who are closed-minded. “The ‘gate’ that lets through the information that reaches consciousness may have a different level of flexibility,” Anna Antinori, the study’s author, said. “Open people appear to have a more flexible gate and let through more information than the average person.” This wide-open filter can be great for creativity, but is potentially maddening as well. So if you’re open-minded, chances are you’re experiencing more of the world than those who are not.
