Personality,time of day and visual perception: Preferences and selective attention

The study examined the relationships between Eysenck's personality dimensions and certain aspects of visual perception employing a sample of 83 females. Interaction effects of time of day were emphasized. As to personality, the focus was on the extraversion components Impulsivity (I) and Sociability (S). As to perception, two major aspects were focused on: (1) preferences for (a) colour and (b) form, and (2) selective attention to the salient feature (form complexity) of present stimuli using a person-centered ANOVA approach. The personality by time-of-day interaction hypothesis was only supported for the I (and not S) component, under conditions 1a and 2; in the morning high I scorers preferred more stimulating colours, and paid less attention to form complexity, than low I scorers whereas a reverse pattern emerged in the evening. Neuroticism showed no relationship to perception whereas psychoticism was found to be positively related to colour reactivity and negatively related to reactivity to meaningfulness of stimuli. The findings are discussed in the context of theories about cortical arousal, diurnal rhythm differences, and ‘narrowed attention’.