Study Shows Unconscious Race Bias Found in Brain
/Researchers demonstrate emotional response to images of Black faces is Controllable
A study by researchers from Harvard, Yale and the University of Toronto published in this month's Psychological Science reveals the existence of unconscious race bias as measured by brain activity. The study, conducted at Yale University, suggests that racial bias can be found in the amygdala, a region of the brain involved in emotional response, before it is censored by the frontal cortex and the conscious brain. The study included 13 white subjects between the ages of 18 and 30 who were shown pictures of the faces of black people while their brain activity was being monitored. The subjects were presented with these images for either 30 milliseconds--too short for the subjects to be aware of seeing an image--or 525 milliseconds, which is long enough to recognize faces.The researchers are optimistic about the implications of their study for human nature. "There's a lot of research that suggests that prejudice is inevitable, or that because people have these automatic responses, they're not responsible for those responses," said Cunningham. "But this shows that although the responses exist, people do have the ability to control them. Perhaps our conscious attitudes can limit our personal response
A study by researchers from Harvard, Yale and the University of Toronto published in this month's Psychological Science reveals the existence of unconscious race bias as measured by brain activity. The study, conducted at Yale University, suggests that racial bias can be found in the amygdala, a region of the brain involved in emotional response, before it is censored by the frontal cortex and the conscious brain. The study included 13 white subjects between the ages of 18 and 30 who were shown pictures of the faces of black people while their brain activity was being monitored. The subjects were presented with these images for either 30 milliseconds--too short for the subjects to be aware of seeing an image--or 525 milliseconds, which is long enough to recognize faces.The researchers are optimistic about the implications of their study for human nature. "There's a lot of research that suggests that prejudice is inevitable, or that because people have these automatic responses, they're not responsible for those responses," said Cunningham. "But this shows that although the responses exist, people do have the ability to control them. Perhaps our conscious attitudes can limit our personal response
