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.

    人们对同种族人的面孔记得比其他种族人的面孔要牢是一个已知的事实。现在科学家们已经发现了这一现象背后的大脑变化。

    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).

    斯坦福大学的珍妮弗·L·爱伯哈德博士和她的同事让19名男子——9个黑人和10个白人——观看来自这两个种族的人脸图片，同时用磁共振成像仪(MRI)监测其脑部活动。

    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.

    据发表于《自然神经科学》上的报告所载，研究者们发现当受试者看到自己种族的人脸时，MRI显示其大脑中的一个特殊区域“亮”了起来。而当受试者看到其他种族的人脸时，这一区域的反应就不是同样强烈。该区域被称为“纺锤状区”。

    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.

    爱伯哈德解释道：“这一区域只有当人们看到人脸时才会被激活，而在看到其他事物甚至是身体其他部分时都没有反应。当人们看到某种他非常了解的事物时，这一区域也会有反应。”她举例说，当鸟类观察者看到一只鸟时，他的“纺锤状区”就会有反应。