Effects of belief in genetic relatedness on resemblance judgments by Japanese raters

Kinship is a key element in the recognition of human genetic relatedness. People use phenotype matching, especially resemblance with respect to facial features, to recognize kin. Bressan and Dal Martello (2002) assessed the effects of actual and assumed genetic relatedness on resemblance ratings made by Italian adults. We replicated their experiment using Japanese individuals as our stimuli and raters. To further assess the processes underlying resemblance ratings, we also compared reaction times. As in previous research, belief in genetic relatedness strongly affected resemblance ratings, but the direction of the cognitive bias was different. Analysis of reaction times indicated that participants took shorter time to assess the resemblance of unrelated pair members than related ones.