People have been found to remember faces of their own race better than they remember faces of other races. Now researchers have uncovered the changes in the brain that underlie that phenomenon.

    人們對同種族人的面孔記得比其他種族人的面孔要牢是一個已知的事實。現在科學家們已經發現了這一現象背后的大腦變化。

    Dr. Jennifer L. Eberhardt and colleagues from Stanford University asked 19 men--9 black and 10 white--to look at pictures of faces of people from both races while they monitored participants brain activity with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

    斯坦福大學的珍妮弗·L·愛伯哈德博士和她的同事讓19名男子——9個黑人和10個白人——觀看來自這兩個種族的人臉圖片，同時用磁共振成像儀(MRI)監測其腦部活動。

    The investigators found that when the study participants looked at faces matching their own race, a specific area of the brain it up on the MRI. But when they looked at pictures of faces of another race, the brain area did not activate to the same degree, according to the report in the Nature Neuroscience. The part of the brain is called the fusiform region.

    據發表于《自然神經科學》上的報告所載，研究者們發現當受試者看到自己種族的人臉時，MRI顯示其大腦中的一個特殊區域“亮”了起來。而當受試者看到其他種族的人臉時，這一區域的反應就不是同樣強烈。該區域被稱為“紡錘狀區”。

    It is an area that is activated when someone looks at a face, but not while they look at other objects or even other parts of the body. It is also activated when a person looks at an object about which they are an expert, Eberhardt explained, noting that a bird watcher fusiform region might be activated if he looks at a bird.

    愛伯哈德解釋道：“這一區域只有當人們看到人臉時才會被激活，而在看到其他事物甚至是身體其他部分時都沒有反應。當人們看到某種他非常了解的事物時，這一區域也會有反應。”她舉例說，當鳥類觀察者看到一只鳥時，他的“紡錘狀區”就會有反應。