Posted inNonfiction, Quotes

Stereotyping in 170 Milliseconds

During a Skype conversation, Quadflieg explained that MRI-based brain studies show stereotypes are activated in about 170 milliseconds. No matter how open-minded we fancy ourselves, these biases kick in without our realizing it, she says. In a 2011 study in the journal Neuro­image, Quadflieg reported that the areas of the brain associated with body recognition had […]

Posted inNonfiction, Quotes

‘I Started to Think About the Prospect of Documenting a Culture That I Understood.’

After my internship, my first assignment for National Geographic was a story about the Zinacenteco Indians in the highlands of Chiapas. The subject was interesting but very challenging. As a woman, my access was mostly limited to other women who only spoke the Maya language I was struggling to learn. Once I traversed the language barrier, it […]

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