Distinguished Lectures in Humanities : the Nature of Human Race Perception : Psychology and Neuroscience Perspectives

People catch others’ racial identities by a glimpse of their faces. Perceived racial identities produce notable impacts on social cognition and emotion and lead to racial biases in social behaviors. Based on behavioral and brain imaging findings, I present a target-observer interaction (TOI) model of race perception, which consists of four cognitive components including the processes of interracial difference, intraracial similarity, intraracial variation, and observers’ own racial identifications. These cognitive processes are associated with dynamic activities in distinct neural circuits covering the occipitotemporal cortices and anterior temporal/prefrontal cortices. These neurocognitive processes provide a basis of racial ingroup biases in social emotions and decision-making. The TOI model has implications for potential interventions of racial biases in social emotions and behaviors.
Event date: 22/1/2026
Speaker: Prof. Shihui HAN
Hosted by: Faculty of Humanities