London, Sep 22 - Scientists have ample evidence that individuals use a variety of cues to spot family resemblances. People can also detect resemblances in families other than their own, a new study suggests.

The study reveals that a person's success in doing so is the same, whether or not those families are the same race as themselves.

French and Senegalese participants were asked to match photos of parents with photos of their children. Both groups were able to detect kinship with the same rate of success, whether they were looking at French parents and children or Senegalese parents and children.

The amount of exposure - i.e. how much or how little contact participants had with members of the other race - had no effect on the participants' ability to correctly match parents with their children.