The Big Five personality factors related to face recognition

Abstract

The present study examined whether scores on big five personality factors correlated with face-recognition response time in visual search paradigm. Sixty adjectives were used to measure personality scores of 60 participants along the five factors of Extroversion, Neuroticism, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Picture of human faces or geometrical figures in a 4 x 4 array were used as stimuli. The sixteen faces or figures were either identical (absent condition) or one randomly placed target with 15 identical distracters (present condition). Participants were asked to respond 'present' or 'absent' as fast and accurately as possible. Results showed that the response time differed significantly between high and low groups of each personality factor except Agreeableness. For Extroversion, Neuroticism, and Conscientiousness, the response time difference was observed only for human face recognition. The results suggested that personality differences and face recognition were related.