6. We have two basically independent learning systems says Shankar Vedantam. The conventional conscious system, and a less understood “hidden brain” system, which automatically becomes fluent in “unspoken rules” (using association patterns in its environment). 7. Hidden brain associations can be unsettling — in a study, 70 percent of toddlers assigned nearly all positive adjectives to white faces, and negative ones to black faces. And black toddlers did the same. Whatever toddlers were explicitly taught, their hidden brain systems implicitly associate different races with different statuses (reflecting status patterns in their environment). Our society typically doesn’t understand such hidden brain effects. 8. Adults also have hidden/involuntary biases, e.g., widespread workplace gender biases, or liberal “racism.” - bigthink.com