When looking at a Bunraku doll (in person) or watching the film Polar Express, I get the sense that I’m looking at something wearing a human face that is not at all human. There is no animation from within.

But– when interacting with a robot that was definitely a candidate for the Uncanny Valley– dead eyes, rigid face, unnatural mouth (in a study at a local university), I was surprised not to have this reaction. I later found out that the “robot” was actually being remotely piloted and voiced by a set of human operators. It was a human personality without a human face.

In interacting with the “robot” in the study, I felt as if my brain was trying to re-map its definition of “person” and smooth out the sense of the surreal. Because the “robot” was actually sentient, this was uncanny in a completely different way. I kept getting worried that I was going to upset or frighten the robot, which was about the size of a small child.

Uncanny Valley may be a good catch-all term, but I get the sense that there’s more than one flavor of Weird going on in these experiences. We may need to expand our vocabulary.

It’s not something you can measure, because individuals each have different criteria, and the Uncanny Valley is also coupled with a sense of danger, something that also is different between people. If something remains nonthreatening, then the Uncanny Valley may not be triggered.

As someone who works with facial modeling, animation and rendering every day, I would love to see some good psychological research done on the topic. However, it is technological extremely difficult to study, and unless you are planning on doing some of this work yourself, perhaps you should refrain from dissing those who try to address the issue as best they can in these unenlightened times. Unless, of course, they are just full of it.

http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/dark-crystal-1.jpg

I think the “they’re almost human, but not quite” explanation perfectly explains why they are so incredibly creepy. While I acknowledge that actually interacting with an uncanny creature might make it less disturbing, I don’t think that disproves the theory at all.

Until there is actually something behind one of those animated faces – CG or mechanical – we will continue to perceive something dreadfully amiss.

I know there are benefits to machines interacting with people using this existing “language”, but I think it may not be as necessary as some think. R2D2 has no human features, expressions or speech, but we can feel a kindred connection with just a little body language and sound we can map on to this far richer human vocabulary.

Measure, heart rate, blood pressure, ecg, respiratory rate, or any like biorhythm while a subject views: a picture of a robot, etc.,

and then in another trial, the same robot in person.

If only…

Great photo with text btw; especially the inclusion of the disembodied power strip!

But, in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that’s going to be human but isn’t yet, or used to be human but isn’t now, or ought to be human and isn’t, keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet.

– Mr. Beaver

Two notes on the article itself. First, for most people the uncanny valley is experienced while watching visual effects on TV or in movies. So however interesting the case of robots may be, the results don’t bear on what most people think of as the “uncanny valley”. Second, calling the uncanny valley an urban legend is just sloppy. People experience the uncanny valley for themselves, no need for any legends.

It is fine to study the relative creepiness of various robots, but this result is being oversold.

Unlike a mime. Brrr.

Also I wonder who actually took that photo, given it’s not from our website.

One of the most scary things I’ve ever seen was a man (I presume, anyway) dressed in a donkey costume. This costume was good enough to look like he’d just skinned the donkey and was wearing it as a disguise. It stood there silently, virtually motionless, looking like the zombie donkey from Hell, just itching to eat my soul with its dead eyes. Regardless of knowing it was just a man in a suit, my brain was screaming “Flee, don’t be fooled, this is a beast from the very bowels of Hell! Let the others in the flock fall prey to its unholy hungers. Flee!!!!”.

There’s a short story (the name of which escapes me), a snippet of which I believe was on BB at some point in the past, which is where I know it from.

In the snippet, one character has the other use a hammer to destroy a small, robotic beetle on a worktable. The first pair of strikes don’t finish it off, and just when the woman is about to make her third strike, the robot starts to wail. Suddenly she drops the hammer in horror, the librucants and fluids leaking from the machine resembling blood, the high pitch wail resembling death cries.

Instinctual reactions, behaviors and emotions that are hardwired into us, are very powerful. When machines play with those instincts, we are robbed of our dignity. We can resist only with strength of will and discipline, and our composure and rationality crumbles in the face of strong instinctual messaging. Allowing people to produce robots that expressly manipulate those instincts is very wrong in my mind.

~D. Walker

Since the phrase was coined by a japanese roboticist named Mori in 1970, long before realistic CG humans were remotely practical.

The Uncanny Valley is a hypothesis, and has shown, under certain conditions, to be true to various degrees. My personal opinion, as someone who regular works to make those super-realistic CG people that so often inspire the invocation of “oooo. uncanny valley!” is that it’s generally an experience in which we notice the imperfections in something we are expected to believe is human/alive. Speaking to a robot, with the knowledge that it is, in fact, a robot, puts a whole different spin on things.

This is a good starting point for rigorous testing of the hypothesis. Much like the Turing Test, acurate physical simulation of a human isn’t something that has a single solution. It is, and I suspect, will continue to be a constant quest which will continue for many, many years.

It could also be the case that personal interaction with a robot overrides the Uncanny Valley. Humans are practically trained to make social interaction easy. We are constantly trying to make conversations make sense, whether we are speaking to other humans, dogs, or inanimate objects. Robots developed for social interaction, such as the ones highlighted in the article developed by humans to interact with humans.

My impression from this is that in person, they simply look fake enough that they’re not in the valley.

This is probably a very good explanation of the difference.

I don’t see how someone can simply say there is no uncanny valley in person. Humans are not creepy, and puppets made from corpses are. It might be easy to avoid, but it’s definitely possible to make a more convincing facsimile of the second than the first if you put work into the wrong features.

Corporate personhood… horrible idea! Join the resistance!