Media outlets often call upon Calvin Lai to explain his research into implicit bias, a term for the attitudes and ideas we have about others without even realizing it.

But the photo in a recent USA Today article that cited Lai about how jurors are influenced by their own preconceived notions gave him a special opportunity to talk about the phenomenon he studies.

The caption for the photo of Calvin Lai says that he provided the picture. The only problem? It’s a totally different Lai—a Hong Kong businessman instead of an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Washington University in St. Louis (and a former high school classmate of this reporter).

“I saw the face and I thought, ‘Hold on, who is this?'” says Lai. “They never asked me for an image so I have no idea how that came about.”

A Google image search of “Calvin Lai” brings up the Washington University professor as the first three results. The Hong Kong businessman whose image was ultimately used in the article is the eighth response. The photo comes from the other Lai’s LinkedIn page.

It could have been a clerical error, says Lai, but it could also be a case of … you guessed it … implicit bias, which Lai defines broadly as “all the little ways in which our everyday thinking about social stuff is unconscious or uncontrollable, and the stuff that we don’t realize is influencing us when we make decisions.”

This specific manifestation is called the cross-race effect, which finds that humans have a tougher time distinguishing people of different races than themselves.

“You could imagine an editor searching up my image on Google, seeing this array of images, and seeing a couple of them that kind of look like me on my website,” says Lai. “The one they ultimately chose had the cleanest picture and a white background. He has a similar haircut, glasses, and he’s Asian.”

This happens because “you might not be attuning to the right things,” he says. “Hair and eye color for white people is diagnostic, not so much for Asian men.”

In a letter to The Cincinnati Enquirer, Lai writes in part that:

Through my own eyes, this other Calvin Lai looked nothing like me. But to an editor, this other man may have looked “close enough” to be me. Mistakes like this show how implicit biases can creep into everyday decision-making without us ever knowing it.

Initially published in The Cincinnati Enquirer, the article “Why juries have a hard time convicting cops” was picked up by the McLean, Va.-based USA Today, as both are owned by media company Gannett. While The Cincinnati Enquirer has changed its photo, USA Today has not as of 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

USA Today has not responded to requests for comment. Lai says the journalist at The Cincinnati Enquirer “has been very very apologetic, and has attempted to act to fix it.”

Lai says that his research has taught him that implicit biases are incredibly difficult to change, so during public speaking events “I mostly focus on ways to design life so you don’t act on implicit biases.”

“If you’re tired, stressed, or under a deadline, you’re more likely to act on impulse, and similarly on implicit bias,” says Lai.

Tired, stressed, and on deadline? Sounds like a lot of journalists I know.

Updated to reflect that Lai wrote the letter to The Cincinnati Enquirer.