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

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

Sixtine Lefebvre  1 , Virginie Beaucousin  2
Affiliations

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

Sixtine Lefebvre et al. PLoS One. .

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.

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Conflict of interest statement

Virginie Beaucousin has declared that no competing interests exist. 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. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Hierarchical stimuli used in the experiment.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Example of present-target trial with a target present at the intermediate level with five distractors.
Note that targets could appear equally often at the global level, the intermediate level or the local level, and there could be zero, one, three or five distractors in the display.
Fig 3
Fig 3
Interaction between the group of participants (Thinker Base, Persister Base, Harmonizer Base, Promoter Base), the level of target occurrence and the number of distractors (top) and effect of the number of distractors and of the level of target occurrence for the Rebel Base and Imaginer Base, respectively (bottom). *p < .05, error bars indicate standard error of the mean.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Effect of the number of distractors in absent-target trials.
*p < .05, error bars indicate standard error of the mean.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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