Kin recognition and the perceived facial similarity of children

Maloney, Laurence T.; Martello, Maria F. Dal

doi:10.1167/6.10.4

Cited by 83 publications

(95 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Our results are generally in line with the three previous studies, indicating that for a kinship degree greater than or equal to 0.5, it is easy to see that the pairs are related. As the research by Maloney & Dal Martello (2006), and to a lesser degree DeBruine et al's (2009) study showed, our participants adopted a 'risk' strategy by responding related more often than unrelated. However, in contrast to the other studies, our participants had lower success rates.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 54%

“…Among the degrees of relatedness investigated in our study, two of them, Id and Sb pairs, have already been studied (Christenfeld & Hill 1995;Maloney & Dal Martello 2006;DeBruine et al 2009). Our results are generally in line with the three previous studies, indicating that for a kinship degree greater than or equal to 0.5, it is easy to see that the pairs are related.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Humans can both categorize their conspecifics by their faces (especially those of the same gender, age or ethnicity) and discriminate among kinship relationships via facial phenotype. The discrimination of relatedness is performed through an assessment of facial similarities between individuals, and humans correctly associate siblings with one another (Maloney & Dal Martello 2006;DeBruine et al 2009), as well as parents with their offspring (Nesse et al 1990;Christenfeld & Hill 1995;Brédart & French 1999;McLain et al 2000;Bressan & Dal Martello 2002;Bressan & Grassi 2004;Oda et al 2005;Alvergne et al 2007). What are the advantages for individuals who can discriminate between people who are related to each other and those who are not?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Human ability to detect kinship in strangers' faces: effects of the degree of relatedness

et al. 2009

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The resemblance between human faces has been shown to be a possible cue in recognizing the relatedness between parents and children, and more recently, between siblings. However, the general inclusive fitness theory proposes that kin-selective behaviours are also relevant to more distant relatives, which requires the detection of larger kinship bonds. We conducted an experiment to explore the use of facial clues by 'strangers', i.e. evaluators from a different family, to associate humans of varying degrees of relatedness. We hypothesized that the visual capacity to detect relatedness should be weaker with lower degrees of relatedness. We showed that human adults are capable of (although not very efficient at) assessing the relatedness of unrelated individuals from photographs and that visible facial cues vary according to the degree of relatedness. This sensitivity exists even for kin pair members that are more than a generation apart and have never lived together. Collectively, our findings are in agreement with emerging knowledge on the role played by facial resemblance as a kinship cue. But we have progressed further to show how the capacity to distinguish between related and non-related pairs applies to situations relevant to indirect fitness.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 54%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Human ability to detect kinship in strangers' faces: effects of the degree of relatedness

et al. 2009

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“…Insofar as siblings resemble self (32), cues of self-resemblance may trigger mechanisms designed to respond to cues of sibling resemblance. Thus, self-resemblance biases could be shaped by learned associations between sibling characteristics and emotional responses to those siblings.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opposite-sex siblings decrease attraction, but not prosocial attributions, to self-resembling opposite-sex faces

DeBruine

Jones

Watkins

et al. 2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Contextual cues of genetic relatedness to familiar individuals, such as cosocialization and maternal-perinatal association, modulate prosocial and inbreeding-avoidance behaviors toward specific potential siblings. These findings have been interpreted as evidence that contextual cues of kinship indirectly influence social behavior by affecting the perceived probability of genetic relatedness to familiar individuals. Here, we test a more general alternative model in which contextual cues of kinship can influence the kinrecognition system more directly, changing how the mechanisms that regulate social behavior respond to cues of kinship, even in unfamiliar individuals for whom contextual cues of kinship are absent. We show that having opposite-sex siblings influences inbreeding-relevant perceptions of facial resemblance but not prosocial perceptions. Women with brothers were less attracted to self-resembling, unfamiliar male faces than were women without brothers, and both groups found self-resemblance to be equally trustworthy for the same faces. Further analyses suggest that this effect is driven by younger, rather than older, brothers, consistent with the proposal that only younger siblings exhibit the strong kinship cue of maternal-perinatal association. Our findings provide evidence that experience with opposite-sex siblings can directly influence inbreeding-avoidance mechanisms and demonstrate a striking functional dissociation between the mechanisms that regulate inbreeding and the mechanisms that regulate prosocial behavior toward kin.inclusive fitness | incest avoidance | optimal outbreeding | individual differences | face perception I nclusive fitness theory (1) and theories concerning the costs of inbreeding (2) both predict selection pressures favoring social behaviors that are contingent on genetic relatedness. Mechanisms to recognize kinship are a prerequisite for such adaptations (3). Kin-recognition mechanisms can be classified as either contextual or phenotypic (reviewed in ref.3). Contextual mechanisms rely on spatial, temporal, or state-dependent cues: cues that are related to the likelihood of being kin, such as coresidence during early life. For example, magpies with no history of sympatry with cuckoos accept all eggs in the nest as kin, even those that are clearly dissimilar to their own (4). Phenotypic mechanisms use direct physical cues, such as olfactory, acoustic, or visual similarity to self or kin. For example, mice can recognize kin from genetically influenced odors (5), and peacocks prefer to associate with brothers even when raised apart (6).Evidence for contextual mechanisms for human kin recognition has focused on the effects of having opposite-sex siblings (7), coresidence duration (8), and maternal-perinatal association (9). Having an opposite-sex sibling is associated with increased opposition to incest in third parties, an indirect measure of incest avoidance (7). Coresidence duration with opposite-sex siblings predicts the strength of opposition to incest in third parties (9, 1...

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“…Participants were also instructed that the images shown would be different versions of the same individual (and would therefore look very similar) but that they should try to use the full range of the scale. This method for assessing the perceived similarity of face images is similar to those used in previous studies of face perception (e.g., Maloney & Dal Martello, 2006).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 96%

The role of symmetry in attraction to average faces

Jones

DeBruine

Little

2007

Perception & Psychophysics

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Although many studies have demonstrated that average faces tend to be attractive, few studies have examined the extent to which symmetry contributes to the attractiveness of average faces. Such studies are potentially important, however, because average faces are highly symmetric and increasing the symmetry of face images increases their attractiveness. Here we demonstrate that increasing averageness of 2-D face shape independently of symmetry is sufficient to increase attractiveness, indicating that preferences for symmetry cannot solely explain the attractiveness of average faces. Additionally, we show that averageness preferences are significantly weaker when the effects of symmetry are controlled for using computer graphic methods than when the effects of symmetry are not controlled for, suggesting that symmetry contributes to the attractiveness of average faces. Importantly, this latter finding was not explained by the greater perceived similarity between versions of faces that varied in averageness, but not symmetry, than between versions of faces that varied in both averageness and symmetry.

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Kin recognition and the perceived facial similarity of children

Cited by 83 publications

References 44 publications

Human ability to detect kinship in strangers' faces: effects of the degree of relatedness

Human ability to detect kinship in strangers' faces: effects of the degree of relatedness

Opposite-sex siblings decrease attraction, but not prosocial attributions, to self-resembling opposite-sex faces

The role of symmetry in attraction to average faces

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