Kin recognition signals in adult faces

Debruine, L.M. , Smith, F.G., Jones, B.C. , Roberts, S.G., Petrie, M. and Spector, T.D. (2009) Kin recognition signals in adult faces. Vision Research, 49(1), pp. 38-43. (doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2008.09.025)

Abstract

Maloney and Dal Martello [Maloney, L.T., Dal Martello, M.F. (2006). Kin recognition and the perceived facial similarity of children. Journal of Vision, 6(10), 1047–1056. http://www.journalofvision.org/6/10/4/] reported that similarity ratings of pairs of related and unrelated children were almost perfect predictors of the probability that those children were judged as being siblings by a second group of observers. Surprisingly, similarity ratings were poor predictors of whether a pair was same-sex or opposite-sex, suggesting that people ignore cues that are uninformative about kinship when making similarity judgments of faces. Using adult sibling faces, we find that similarity ratings for same-sex pairs were significantly higher than for opposite-sex pairs, suggesting that similarity judgments of adult faces are not entirely synonymous with kinship judgments.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: DeBruine, Professor Lisa and Jones, Professor Benedict
• Authors: Debruine, L.M., Smith, F.G., Jones, B.C., Roberts, S.G., Petrie, M., and Spector, T.D.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Psychology & Neuroscience
• Journal Name: Vision Research
• Publisher: Pergamon
• ISSN: 0042-6989