The ability to detect phenotypic similarity or kinship in third-parties’ faces is not perfect, but better than chance. Still, some humans are better than others at this task. Yet researchers in kinship detection have difficulties in building up large and diverse datasets of high-quality pictures of related persons. The current experiments tested a novel method for circumventing this difficulty by using morphing techniques in order to generate a wide array of stimuli derived from a limited number of individual pictures. Six experiments tested various stimuli (standard protocol, mirrored face, other-sex face, other-ethnicity face, other-expression face and antiface). Our benchmarks are the similarity or kinship scores achieved by participants when faced with pictures of real siblings. We show that all stimuli, except the antiface, elicit detection scores similar to those elicited by real pictures of actual siblings. In addition, by exploring different experiment parameters (simultaneous or sequential task, kinship or similarity task) and some individual characteristics, these experiments provide a better understanding of kinship detection in third parties. The validation of our new method will allow widening the range of available stimuli to the research community, and even to develop new ecologically relevant experimental protocols that are hardly or not feasible with veridical images.

检测第三方面部表型相似性或亲属关系的能力并不完美，但比偶然性要好。尽管如此，在这项任务上，有些人还是比其他人做得更好。然而，亲属关系检测的研究人员难以建立大量多样的相关人员高质量图片数据集。目前的实验测试了一种新的方法，通过使用变形技术来规避这一困难，以便从有限数量的单个图片中生成广泛的刺激。六个实验测试了各种刺激（标准协议、镜像脸、其他性别脸、其他种族脸、其他表情脸和反脸）。我们的基准是参与者在面对真实兄弟姐妹的照片时获得的相似度或亲属关系分数。我们证明了所有的刺激，除了反面，得出与实际兄弟姐妹的真实照片相似的检测分数。此外，通过探索不同的实验参数（同时或顺序任务、亲属关系或相似性任务）和一些个体特征，这些实验提供了对第三方亲属关系检测的更好理解。我们的新方法的验证将允许扩大对研究界的可用刺激范围，甚至可以开发新的生态相关实验方案，这些实验方案对于真实图像几乎不可行或不可行。这些实验提供了对第三方亲属关系检测的更好理解。我们的新方法的验证将允许扩大对研究界的可用刺激范围，甚至可以开发新的生态相关实验方案，这些实验方案对于真实图像几乎不可行或不可行。这些实验提供了对第三方亲属关系检测的更好理解。我们的新方法的验证将允许扩大对研究界的可用刺激范围，甚至可以开发新的生态相关实验方案，这些实验方案对于真实图像几乎不可行或不可行。