By tracking the activation of the FFA over multiple displays of strangers’ faces, we found that the FFA was responding more vigorously to faces that were the same race as the study participant. That finding held true for both the black and the white people we scanned. We also found that the more dramatic the FFA response to a specific face, the more likely the study participants were able to recognize that stranger’s face when they were shown the photograph again later, outside the scanner.
