--- title: They All Look the Same: How Racism Works Neurologically description: You've heard the racial epithet: All you people look the same. It's detestable, but a new study shows that the racist observation happens to be... canonical: https://time.com/archive/7143400/they-all-look-the-same-how-racism-works-neurologically/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2010-11-24T13:45:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-16T11:25:02.251Z article:section: Health og:title: They All Look the Same: How Racism Works Neurologically og:description: You've heard the racial epithet: All you people look the same. It's detestable, but a new study shows that the racist observation happens to be... og:url: https://time.com/archive/7143400/they-all-look-the-same-how-racism-works-neurologically/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbde227b917cc5f3c/698a951ccabb1d51aae5a844/307_brain1.jpg?branch=production&width=307&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 307 og:image:height: 173 og:image:alt: 307_Brain og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: They All Look the Same: How Racism Works Neurologically twitter:description: You've heard the racial epithet: All you people look the same. It's detestable, but a new study shows that the racist observation happens to be... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbde227b917cc5f3c/698a951ccabb1d51aae5a844/307_brain1.jpg?branch=production&width=307&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Health](/section/health/) # They All Look the Same: How Racism Works Neurologically > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. 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It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Nov 24, 2010 1:45 PM UTC  David Sacks/Getty Images by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Nov 24, 2010 1:45 PM UTC You’ve heard the racial epithet: All you people look the same. It’s detestable, but a [new study](http://www.pnas.org/content/107/46/20081.abstract) shows that the racist observation happens to be true.more To members of one race, members of another race are far more difficult to differentiate. The study, written by a European team led by Luca Vizioli of the University of Glasgow and published in a recent issue of the _Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences_, begins by noting that humans are remarkably skilled at facial recognition: we can differentiate family members and friends from strangers in far less than a second. (**More on Time.com:** [The Authentic Self: How Do You Know If You’re ‘Really’ Racist or Sexist?](http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/11/seeking-the-authentic-self-how-do-you-know-if-youre-really-racist-or-sexist/)) And yet as long ago as 1914, an academic publication called the _Journal of Criminal Law and Police Science_ published [an article](http://books.google.com/books?id=qP8oAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=Feingold+The+influence+of+environment+on+identification+of+persons&source=bl&ots=A42c%5FYWi8Y&sig=gcYOyh3Cfz71Jat6ZUj7JYxIXfI&hl=en&ei=3lDsTO3HG4H6lwf54qSpAQ&sa=X&oi=book%5Fresult&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Feingold%20The%20influence%20of%20environment%20on%20identification%20of%20persons&f=false) saying it takes us longer to tell apart members of races other than our own. “To the uninitiated American,” the authors wrote, “all Asiatics look alike, while to the Asiatics, all White men look alike.” The authors of the new study set out to discover why this “perceptual illusion,” as they call it, has persisted. To study how we see others’ faces, they looked at electrical signals coming from the heads of 12 people of East Asian descent and 12 people of Caucasian descent as they viewed photos of members of their own and the other race. Previous studies had looked at whites only. The signals are measured with electroenchephalography, or EEG, and they offer a strong clue about how much neural activity is occurring when any particular picture is on the screen. (**More on Time.com:** [I Don’t Actually Hate Myself: Why Harvard Is Wrong About Bias](http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/12/i-dont-actually-hate-myself-why-harvard-is-wrong-about-bias/)) The study found that, as expected, both Asian and white observers revealed what is called the “other-race effect”: they took longer to recognize members of other races. The authors controlled for differences in how the faces in the photos looked. It didn’t matter whether someone was pretty or ugly, whether they were making a nice face or a rude one: it still took longer to recognize them if they were a member of another race. What do these results mean? The authors are careful on this point. The idea that racism is built into our DNA is both unsavory and disappointing. Also, the sample is small: just 24 people. But the results suggest that we are programmed to see members of other races as, literally, different beings. The “‘all-look-alike’ perceptual experience,” as the authors call it, is real. (**More on Time.com:** [I Know the Truth, So Don’t Bother Me With Facts](http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/29/i-know-the-truth-so-dont-bother-me-with-facts/)) These impulses are almost certainly evolutionary: we react against a member of another tribe that may be trying to annihilate us. One silver lining: understanding these impulses may help us to overcome them. **Related Links:** [Are You More Likely to Be Stressed?](http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/19/whos-stressed-in-america-the-answer-may-surprise-you/) [Upper-Class People Bad at Reading Others Emotions](http://www.aolhealth.com/2010/11/23/upper-class-people-bad-at-reading-others-emotions/) [Psychology vs. Psychiatry: What’s the Difference, and Which Is Better?](http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/#ixzz124Zjwahd) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7143400/they-all-look-the-same-how-racism-works-neurologically/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7143400/they-all-look-the-same-how-racism-works-neurologically/"},"headline":"They All Look the Same: How Racism Works Neurologically","datePublished":"2010-11-24T13:45:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-16T11:25:02.251Z","description":"You've heard the racial epithet: All you people look the same. 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