Development Varies In Different Areas of the Brain

At the Keck School of Medicine at USC, Ione Fine, Ph.D., was the principal investigator of a study on brain regions which respond selectively to cues of gender, ethnicity and identity cues in the faces of others.

The study showed that some people have an inability to make distinctions such as these, even failing to recognize obvious gender cues. Most of the population is likely to fall in the midrange of this ability, with some able to detect a slew of identity features at a glance.

The next time you realize that your companion didn't notice the waitress was speaking with an Italian accent, consider the possiblity that he or she may not have this particular brain development at the same level as you. The idea that we have such a range of individual brain development can help us to accept all kinds of differences in others. Our experiences of the world are truly as unique as our fingerprints.

What details of your environment do you tend to notice most?

Lightly,
Suzanna