Seeing the forest or the tree depends on personality: Evidence from process communication model during global/local visual search task

PLoS One. 2023 Apr 21;18(4):e0284596. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0284596. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

In everyday life, we are continuously confronted with multiple levels of visual information processes (e.g., global information, the forest, and local information, the tree) and we must select information that has to be processed. In the present study, we investigated the relation between personality and the ability to process global and local visual information. Global precedence phenomenon was assessed by a standard global/local visual search task used in many visuo-spatial precedent studies, and the 77 participants were also presented with the standard Process Communication Model (PCM) questionnaire. Results suggest that the ability to process global and local properties of visual stimuli varied according to the Base type of participants. Even if four among six Base types (Thinker, Persister, Harmonizer and Promoter) presented a classical global visual precedence, the two other Base types (Rebel and Imaginer) presented only an effect of distractors and an effect of global advantage, respectively. Taken together, these results evidenced that each human being does not equally perceive the "forest" (global information) and the "tree" (local information). Even if objectively presented with similar visual stimuli, individual responses differ according to the Base, an inter-individual variability that could be taken into account during daily life situations.

MeSH terms

  • Attention* / physiology
  • Communication
  • Humans
  • Personality
  • Personality Disorders
  • Visual Perception* / physiology

Grants and funding

The Author Virginie Beaucousin received no specific funding for this work. The author Sixtine Lefebvre is employee by Kahler Communication France (KCF) which has the right for the exploitation of the PCM questionnaire. KCF had no role in the study design, data collection, decision to publish. KCF only check for the exact description of the PCM.