Human Personality Traits Reflect in Neural Oscillations

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 Department of Electrical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Hafez Ave.,15875-4413, Tehran, Iran.

2 Department of Education and Psychology, Alzahra University, DehVanak Ave.,19938-93973, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Association between neural oscillation and personality has been a topic
of enhancing interest of neuroscience and psychology. It is believed that human personality reflects in the brain’s electrical neural oscillation. However, it’s exact relations and mechanisms are not fully understood. In the present work, we analyze electroencephalograms (EEG) signals recorded from 40 healthy subjects during the performance of electronic personality traits tasks, as measured by the NEO-FFI. Subsequently, we examine how these personality traits are related to patterns of different neural oscillations. We found that a personality trait of contrasting conscientiousness is significantly associated with engagement of frontal cortex theta and gamma oscillations. Likewise, extraversion is significantly associated with activity in the temporal and parietal regions. We realized that, the personality traits were significantly and consistently associated with the frequency rhythms in different brain areas. We then investigated the correlations between personality traits and psychophysical health factors. Our data indicated that the level of fatigue and social disturbance among participants are inappropriate in relation to other psychometric properties. We found a significant correlation between neuroticism and fatigue, Depressive reactions and Physical health. This study illustrates an approach to investigating personality traits and how it is related to patterns of brain activity.

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Main Subjects

References

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AUT Journal of Modeling and Simulation
Volume 52, Issue 2
December 2020
Pages 157-166

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