本课题主要的研究领域是面孔识别中的异族效应，即人们识别本民族的脸比识别其它民族的脸更加快速和准确的现象。异族效应的神经机制目前尚无定论，试图解释异族效应的理论主要侧重于民族因素对感知觉过程的影响或者对社会化认知过程的影响。本课题拟在已有的相关研究基础上，用功能核磁共振等研究手段，研究不同亲缘水平对异族效应的神经过程之影响（如哈萨克族之于维族在血缘和文化上均为近亲民族，汉族之于维族为远亲民族）。并进一步研究民族因素对表情识别的影响是否遵循相似的神经机制。.预期成果将加深我们在大脑如何感知和处理民族这一社会因素领域的理解；通过研究感知觉过程和社会认知过程在处理民族信息时的相互作用方式和关系，为丰富和完善异族效应神经机制的理论框架提供实验依据。

The other-race effect, which refers to the tendency of recognize members of one's own race more quickly and precisely, is a widely known phenomenal nevertheless the underline neural mechanism remains unclear. Current hypothesizes for its neural mechanism including perceptual expertise model and social cognitive model. The goal of this proposed study is to compare functional brain activity patterns between races with high genetic and social relationship and races do not have genetic and social relationship. We also proposed to test if race affect the expression recognition via the same neural mechanism..This study will characterize functional brain organization in perception and processing race. In addition, our results will provide experimental data for the establishment of a comprehensive theoretical hypothesis toward better understanding of other-race effect which incorporate both perceptual expertise model and social cognitive model.