看欧美剧时，很容易将不熟悉的登场人物给搞混，总要花一些时间才能清楚地将人物的名字和脸孔对上，而据说欧美人看亚洲剧也有同感，为什么会有这种现象呢？

720流利阅读:看欧美剧脸盲是怎么回事

The common perception that people from other racial groups look alike is rooted in the way human brains process what they see, researchers say.

研究人员表示，人们普遍认为来自其他种族群体的人看起来很像，而这种看法的根源在于人类大脑处理所见事物的方式。

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.

众所周知，人们区分自己种族的成员比区分其他种族的成员更容易。如今一项新研究证实，这种现象至少有一部分源于视觉和神经机制。

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.

这项研究已经发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》上。研究人员报告，他们向 20 名白人参与者展示了一系列图像，包括面部、数字和物体，并用功能性核磁共振成像技术扫描了他们的大脑——这项技术可以让研究团队观察大脑活动的变化。

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 名参与者中，有 19 人在看到一张白人面孔时，大脑中负责面部识别区域的激活程度比看到黑人面孔的时候更强。研究人员说，这表明参与者更善于识别白人面孔之间的差别；即使看到的同种肤色的面孔之间完全不同，他们看到白人面孔时的大脑活动还是更强。

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.”

研究人员表示，其发现或许有助于研究如何避免有害的偏见。来自斯坦福大学的论文合著者尼克·坎普说，有证据表明这种现象可能取决于用来给图像中的人们分组的特征是什么。他说：“让人们用不同的方式思考群体，或者对个体进行重新分类，可能是对抗这些底层感知偏见的有效方式。”

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racial/ˈreɪʃl/  adj. 种族的，人种的

搭配短语：the system of racial segregation

720流利阅读:看欧美剧脸盲是怎么回事

近义词：ethnic

ethnic 例句：The movie features lead actors of various ethnic origins.

词义辨析
ethnic, racial
ethnic 和 racial 都可以表示“种族的”，ethnic 更侧重于文化习俗方面的不同，它不单指种族，还可以指民族。而 racial 更多指人的外在特征和样貌，最典型的特征莫过于肤色、或者是眼睛、头发的颜色。

neural/ˈnʊrəl/

adj. 神经的；神经系统的

英文释义：relating to nerves or the nervous system

例句：Neural networks are applied in machine learning.

perception/pərˈsepʃn/

n. 认识，观念，看法

相关词汇：perceive（v.）

perceive 例句：It was only meant to be a joke, but she perceived it as an insult.

例句：There is no truth. There is only perception.

be rooted in  深深扎根于；源于

720流利阅读:看欧美剧脸盲是怎么回事

相关词汇： root（n. 树根，根基）

近义词：have its roots in sth.

近义词：stem from sth.

例句：High crime rates are typically rooted in widespread unemployment and poverty.

tell apart  分辨；区分

近义词：distinguish；differentiate

例句：The twins look so much alike that I just can't tell them apart.

back up  证实；支持

proceedings/prəˈsiːdɪŋz/

n. 事件；议项；会议记录

spot/spɑːt/  v. 看见，看出；注意到

face-recognition/feɪs ˌrekəɡˈnɪʃn/

n. 面部识别

recognition 英文释义：the identification of someone or something

recognition 同义词：identification

搭配短语：face-recognition algorithms

activate/ˈæktɪveɪt/ v. 激活

720流利阅读:看欧美剧脸盲是怎么回事

pick up on

注意到（他人未注意到的事物）

英文释义：become aware of or sensitive to something

例句：I failed to pick up on the humor in his remark.

bias/ˈbaɪəs/  n. 偏见；偏心；偏袒

720流利阅读:看欧美剧脸盲是怎么回事

近义词：prejudice

词义辨析
bias, prejudice
bias 指的是“根据个人好恶或成见，提出的带有偏差的意见”，而 prejudice 往往更进一步，指“带有恶意的偏见”。

categorise/ˈkætəɡəraɪz/

v. 对…进行分类，将…归类

combat/ˈkɑːmbæt, kəmˈbæt/ v. 打击；对抗；制止

720流利阅读:看欧美剧脸盲是怎么回事

英文释义：to stop something unpleasant or harmful from happening

例句：I have to combat my constant desire to eat chocolate.

perceptual/pərˈseptʃuəl/

adj. 感知的；知觉的

相关词汇：perception（n.）

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              异族效应

异族效应是面孔识别中的一种普遍现象，早在上个世纪七十年代就被科学家们发现了。截止到本世纪初，80%的面孔识别研究都发现了显著的异族效应。异族效应的表现跨越了不同种族，不同文化，甚至不同年龄。

异族效应在不同人群中的表现并不完全相同。一般来说，多数种群比少数种群更容易产生异族效应，比如白人比黑人更容易“脸盲”。 所以，在欧美国家的法庭上指证黑人嫌疑犯时通常还要结合证词，交叉指认，避免因为分不清楚长相而造成误判。

许多研究发现，与异族人的较多接触可以减弱或消除异族效应，特殊情况下甚至还会出现异族效应的反转，也就是更能认出异族人而不是本族人的面孔。比如，从小就被白人家庭收养的韩国儿童就更能识别白人面孔，而不是本族人（韩国人）的面孔。

此外，辨认者的情绪也会对面孔辨识的准确度产生影响，正面情绪能够显著增进对异族面孔的正确认识，从而消除异族效应。一些有针对性的训练，比如将注意力放在个人的面孔细节，而不是种族特征上，也能消除异族效应。