A century ago, psychologists identified “the uncanny” as an experience that seems familiar yet foreign at the same time, causing some sort of brain confusion and, ultimately, a feeling of fear or repulsion. Originally no more than a scientific curiosity, this psychological effect has gradually emerged as a profound problem in the fields of robotics and computer animation.
The most familiar things in the world to us — the voices, appearances and behavior of humans — are being replicated with increasing veracity by animators and robotics engineers. Today’s ultra-lifelike androids and computer-rendered humans would seem to bridge the valley between the land of the living and the distant cartoon world occupied by Disney princesses and animé characters. But these characters aren’t so much bridging the valley as falling into it. When we look at them, they seem at once familiar and eerily alien, triggering an uneasy feeling.
The spooky region occupied by these characters, so close to us and yet so far, is known as “the uncanny valley.” The term comes from a graph created by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori that plots human empathy against the anthropomorphism of robots. On the graph, as robots become more realistic and we feel more and more empathy for them, the line trends upward. But as the robots’ humanism approaches that of actual humans, our empathy for them — and the line on the graph — suddenly plummets. The resemblance between human and robot goes from remarkable to repulsive, and this precipitous drop became known as the “uncanny valley.”
Karl MacDorman, a professor in the Computer-Human Interaction Program at Indiana University, leads a research team that is investigating why, psychologically, the uncanny valley exists. He hopes his research will help animators and other roboticists bridge the valley by creating human replicas that come across as lifelike and
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