The clone devaluation effect: does duplication of local facial features matter?

OBJECTIVE: The clone devaluation is a phenomenon reported by the latest paper in which eeriness is evoked when people observe individuals with the same face (clone faces) compared to those with different faces. There are two possibilities that explain the clone devaluation effect. One is that the same facial features that clone faces have (duplication of facial features) induce the clone devaluation effect. The other possibility is that duplication of identities between people with clone faces is important for the clone devaluation effect. We thus conducted an experiment to investigate whether the duplication of identities or of facial features induces the clone devaluation effect. RESULTS: Participants evaluated eeriness of scrambled clone faces and scrambled different faces using the paired comparison method. There was only a slight difference in subjective eeriness between scrambled clone faces and scrambled different faces. Therefore, this study suggests that the duplication of local facial features does not play a key role in inducing the clone devaluation effect.