You May Have a Look-Alike Who Isn’t a Family Member

In 2019, a film entitled Us was released in the U.S. It is a horror film about a family of four that is terrorized by an evil doppelganger family of four. Doppelganger is a German word meaning a double or look-alike of an actual living person. The doppelganger is not biologically related to the live person who they resemble.

The Science of Doppelgangers

The randomness of recognizing ourselves in the face of a person who isn't a member of our family is understandably something that could feel rather creepy. So, no wonder filmmaker Jordan Peele and his collaborators were able to create a successful horror film that featured doppelgangers stalking a nice family who goes on vacation. But recently, the topic of the doppelganger has moved from the art of filmmaking to the focus of scientific research (Joshi et al., 2022).

The researchers used pairs of photos of look-alikes derived from a Canadian photographic artist's decades-long collection of these faces. But the researchers didn't think it sufficient or scientifically sound to rely on pairs of faces to be look-alikes based only on humans’ perception of the faces. Instead, they used three different face recognition software programs designed for facial classification, surveillance, and generalized facial analysis.

We’ve all likely had someone tell us that we look like someone, even if we might disagree. Science suggests, too, that our human brain may perceive two people as look-alikes, yet the algorithms from facial recognition software may say no, they don't match. This is what happened for 16 pairs of faces examined in the research. The inconsistency between the software judgment and humans' judgment isn’t surprising, though, because humans bring our own psychological experiences to bear on what we perceive people, places, and things to look like.

Software Reveals, Yes, These Faces Are Look-Alikes

Via the software programs, the researchers found that 16 pairs of faces scored similarly to identical twins who were identified using the same software. Researchers found these 16 pairs of doppelgangers to have many more randomly coded genes in common than the other 16 pairs of faces, which the software didn't deem a match.

Culture and Environment Matter as Much as Biology

Epigenetics is the study of how the environment (cultural experiences including hardships, traumas, privilege, wealth, and poverty) and behavior can cause changes in the way a person's genes work. Thus, look-alikes shouldn’t be expected to be alike in who they are nor how they think and express emotions. But if they have also had similar human experiences, it's possible there could be some similar behaviors or personalities. Microbiomes are microorganisms that can influence our genetics and neural functioning. The viruses and bacteria from the air and water in different geographic contexts might also influence how look-alikes behave and express other aspects of their humanity.

Who Was Left Out and What We Still Need to Know?

There may be even more look a- likes than have been recognized because culture and context may obscure physical similarities. For example, across cultures and contexts, hairstyle and attire norms can vary such that it may be more difficult to recognize just how much two people look-alike who may be from different cultures.

Our brain’s processing may overlook a perceived match in facial features if we are distracted by hair length, make-up or no make-up, facial hair or not, or varying religious-based hair coverings and other modesty-based dress. Joshi et al. (2022) described that they controlled the photos' hairstyle, clothing, and accessories. They also wrote that the study is based on an international sample.

However, a close examination of the research shows that largely the pairs of faces examined were derived from Europe and, secondly, from North America. So although South America, Africa, and Asia are vast and densely populated continents, the photo pairs used in the research were limited to only a few countries (Columbia, Chile, Angola, and Azerbaijan) of these continents.

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Because non-relative look-alikes who are genetically similar occur randomly in the human population, such pairs should exist worldwide. Yet further research is needed that includes people from regions not included in the Joshi et al. (2022) study. This would help uncover how truly universal and unbiased are these current findings based on the software and collection of photos they used.

So when the vast numbers of Asians, Africans, and South Americans eventually encounter their doppelganger, they should try to capture a photo and get it to the scientists. It might help to uncover just how many doppelganger pairs really do exist around the world.