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Screen shots of two virtual women created by University of Florida computer engineers reveal few differences besides skin color. UF and Medical College of Georgia researchers used the virtual women to test how medical students respond to virtual patients of apparently different races. The study found that the white, third-year students were less empathetic with dark-skinned than light-skinned patients during brief one-on-one interviews, suggesting that well-documented racial bias in medicine extends from real people to their virtual representations.

(Virtual Experience Research Group, University of Florida Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering.)
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