The common perception that people from other racial groups look alike is rooted in the way human brains process what they see, researchers say.
研究人員表示，人們普標(biāo)認(rèn)為來自其他種族群體的人看起來很像，而這種看法的根源在于人類大腦處理所見事物的方式。
It has long been known that people find it easier to tell apart members of their own race than those of a different race. Now a new study backs up the idea that the phenomenon is rooted, at least in part, in visual and neural processes.
眾所周知，人們區(qū)分自己種族的成員比區(qū)分其他種族的成員更容易。如今一項(xiàng)新研究證實(shí)，這種現(xiàn)在至少有一部分源于視覺和神經(jīng)機(jī)制。
The researchers, whose study has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reported how 20 white participants were shown a series of images including faces, numbers and objects, while they had their brains scanned using functional MRI — a technique that allowed the team to spot changes in activity.
這項(xiàng)研究已經(jīng)發(fā)表在《美國(guó)國(guó)家科學(xué)院院刊》上。研究人員報(bào)告，他們向20名白人參與者展示了一系列圖像，包括面部、數(shù)字和物體，并用功能性核磁共振成像技術(shù)掃描了他們的大腦——這項(xiàng)技術(shù)可以讓研究團(tuán)隊(duì)觀察大腦活動(dòng)的變化。
In 19 of the 20 participants, a greater area of the face-recognition region was activated when the participants saw a white face compared with a black face. The researchers said that it suggested participants were better at picking up on physical differences between white faces — even for faces completely different to each other, brain activity was higher for white faces.
在20名參與者中，有19人在看到一張拜仁面孔時(shí)，大腦中負(fù)責(zé)面部識(shí)別區(qū)域的激活程度比看到黑人面孔的時(shí)候更強(qiáng)。研究人員說，這表明參與者更善于識(shí)別拜仁面孔之間的差別；即使看到的同種膚色的面孔之間完全不同，他們看到拜仁面孔時(shí)的大腦活動(dòng)還是更強(qiáng)。
The researchers said the findings could help to investigate ways to avoid harmful biases. Nick Camp, the co-author of the research from Stanford University, said some evidence suggested the phenomenon could depend on which characteristics were used to group people. He said: “Getting people to think about groups in different ways, or re-categorising individuals, might be an effective way of combating even these low-level perceptual biases.”
研究人員表示，其發(fā)現(xiàn)或許有助于研究如何避免有害的偏見。 來自斯坦福大學(xué)的論文合著者Nick Camp說，有證據(jù)表明這種現(xiàn)象可能取決于用來給圖像中的人們分組的特征是什么。 他說：“讓人們用不同的方式思考群體，或者對(duì)個(gè)體進(jìn)行重新分類，可能是對(duì)抗這些底層感知偏見的有效方式?！?/p>
